*B  m  4°a 


GIFT   OF 


IHBSI 


Cor  Mimdi 

The  Heart 
of  the  World 


A  Contribution  to  the 
Mission  of  the 
UNITED  STATES 
OF  AMERICA 
in  the  Modern  World 


ONE  DOLLAR,  NET 


By  NICOLA  GIGLIOTTI 


IBBBBDD 


Cor 


The  Heart  of  the  World 


c/4  Contribution  to  the  omission  of  the 
UNITED  STATES   OF  AMERICA 

ferossl     In  the  ^Modern  World    |s8$8^ 


ONE  ^DOLLAR,  NET 


By 


NICOLA     GIGLIOTTI 


COPYRIGHTED     1918 

BY 
NICOLA     GIGLIOTTI 


ERIE,     PENN'A 


To 
SAMUEL  E.  HOLLY, 

Editor  of  the  Erie  Evening  Herald, 

Modest,  Able,  Conscientious,  Foresighted, 

Who  has  seen  into  the  future  in  the  same  spirit  which  has 

dictated  the  following  pages 
and  who  loves  this  great  country  with  the  same  love 

that  inflames  me,     . 
This  little  book  is  affectionately  inscribed. 


886351 


To  the  Reader: 

This  modest  contribution  to  American  just  propaganda  I 
have  dictated  from  bed.  While  doctors  were  insisting  that  I 
should  keep  absolutely  quiet,  because  my  life  was  and  is  in 
danger,  I  have  dictated  the  following  pages,  jumpingly  and 
disconnectedly,  but  with  unity  of  purpose.  If  I  shall  live,  my 
modest  mission  in  life  will  be  continued,  and  if  God's  will  is 
that  I  must  answer  my  summons,  these  pages  ought  to  be  con 
sidered  as  my  political  testament.  My  children  and  my  grand 
children,  if  my  memory  will  mean  anything  at  all  to  them, 
must  continue  the  work  of  loving  free  institutions  and  man 
kind,  and  of  doing  everything  in  their  power  to  keep  kindled 
in  theirs  and  in  their  neighbors'  hearts  the  noble  flame  of 
pure  patriotism. 

NICOLA  GIGLIOTTI. 
Erie,  Pa.,  March  1st,  1918. 
2905  Poplar  St. 


The  Heart  of  the  World 


Cor  Mundi. 

The  name  of  peace  is  sweet;  the  thing  itself 
is  most  salutary.  But  between  peace  and  slavery 
there  is  a  wide  difference.  Peace  is  liberty  in 
tranquillity;  slavery  is  the  worst  of  all  evils — to 
be  repelled,  if  need,  not  only  by  war,  but  even  by 
death.  CICERO. 

I  have  been  in  this  country  for  over  twenty-five  years, 
and  I  take  pride  in  the  fact  that  my  political  adversaries  in 
Italy,  when  they  did  not  accuse  me  of  being  a  friend  of  France 
— one  of  the  men  who,  with  Cavallotti,  Bovio,  Imbriani,  and 
others,  wished  to  see  the  ruin  of  my  motherland,  in  the  interest 
of  the  great  nation  which  proclaimed  the  rights  of  men — they 
nicknamed  me  the  AMERICAN,  on  account  of  my  love  for 
the  United  States  of  America,  and  of  my  worship  for  Wash 
ington,  Jefferson,  and  Lincoln.  I  had  lectured  on  the  great 
ness  of  republican  federal  governments,  and  I  had  tried  to 
popularize  the  doctrine  that  peace  could  be  enjoyed  in  Europe 
only  when  all  empires,  monarchies,  and  republics  would  be 
united  in  a  federation  of  states.  I  had  been  very  active — in 
order  to  check  the  menacing  invasion  of  the  doctrines  of  Karl 
Marx  and  of  the  materialistic  conception  of  history — to  give 
as  much  diffusion  as  it  was  possible  for  me  to  two  books  of 
typical  American  authors— PROGRESS  AND  POVERTY  of 
Henry  George,  and  LOOKING  BACKWARD  of  Edward  Bel 
lamy.  The  last  book  was  responsible — I  am  sorry  to  say — to 
help  the  spread  of  Socialism  much  more  than  all  the  mission 
ary  work  of  Andrea  Costa,  and  all  the  books  and  pamphlets  of 
Marx,  Engels,  Lafargue,  etc.  Signor  Oddino  Morgari,  a  lead 
ing  member  of  the  Italian  Parliament,  after  he  read  and  re 
read  LOOKING  BACKWARD,  deserted  the  ranks  of  the  Re 
publicanism  of  Mazzini,  and  became  one  of  the  prophets  of 
the  so-called  Scientific  Socialist  Party.  It  was  not  my  fault, 
though.  In  Italy,  in  season  and  out  of  season,  year  in  and 
year  out,  I  advocated  the  principles  of  a  republican  federal 
form  of  government,  as  had  been  proposed  by  Carlo  Cattaneo, 
Alberto  Mario,  and  Giuseppe  Ferrari,  the  eminent  philosopher 
to  whom  we  owe  the  magnificent  edition  of  the  works  of 
Giovan  Battista  Vico.  I  worshipped  Mazzini,  on  whose  knees 
I  played  in  my  infancy  in  the  hospitable  house  of  Giovanni 
Nicotera  in  Naples.  I  bought  and  gave — as  a  sincere  mission 
ary  of  the  protestant  faith  would  have  done  with  the  Gospel 
—thousands  of  copies  of  "I  DOVER!  DELL'UOMO  (Duties  of 
Men)  of  Mazzini,  because  the  doctrine  advocated  in  them  was 


6  'Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

and  is  the  greatest  message  of  freedom,  virtue,  unselfishness, 
and  righteousness  any  liberty  loving  man  could  wish.  From 
the  French  encyclopedists  to  our  time,  the  majority  of  people 
who  advocated  the  fall  of  tyrannies  seemed  to  deny  the  exist 
ence  of  a  living  God,  and  made  an  effort  to  banish  from  history 
the  government  of  Providence.  To  the  exaggerations  of  Bos- 
suet  and  Vico,  and  to  the  "hazard"  of  Voltaire  and  Frederick 
the  Great,  they  substituted  gradually  the  pantheistic  fatalism 
of  Hegel,  the  ppsitivistic  fatalism  of  Comte,  the  revolutionary 
fatalism  of  Thiers,  and  the  historic  materialism  of  Marx  and 
his  school.  I  always  saw  God  immanent  in  mankind,  and  what 
Bancroft  eloquently  said  in  his  famous  speech  to  the  Histori 
cal  Society  of  New  York  in  1856,  seemed  to  me  that  every  man 
should  accept  and  try  to  teach.  Mazzini  understood  the  des 
tinies  of  mankind  better  than  any  other  man,  living  or  gone, 
and  he  knew  that  no  man  was  entitled  to  claim  his  rights  if  he 
was  not  ready  to  perform  his  duties.  And  while  everybody 
else  was  proclaiming  at  the  top  of  his  voice  the  rights  of  indi 
viduals,  he  wrote  The  Duties  of  Men.  Even  our  glorious  Dec 
laration  of  Independence  speaks  too  much  of  certain  inalien 
able  rights,  and  says  very  little  about  imperative  duties.  By 
circulating  widely  the  teachings  of  Mazzini,  I  tried  to  give  my 
modest  contribution  to  make  men  better.  Every  man,  no  mat 
ter  how  modest,  has  a  mission  in  life.  I  tried  to  perform  mine 
to  the  best  of  my  ability.  I  proposed  the  United  States  as  a 
model  of  free  government,  because  of  all  governments  in  the 
world  it  was  and  it  is  the  only  one  where,  in  spite  of  all  un 
avoidable  faults,  people  have  real  freedom,  equal  chances,  and 
all  the  blessings  of  civilization.  People  who  talk  so  much  about 
the  perfection  and  the  freedom  of  Switzerland  don't  know  the 
country,  and  yet  write  books  about  it,  and  propose  it  as  a 
model  to  our  nation.  People  who  worship  France  as  an  ideal 
form  of  government,  seem  to  ignore  that  the  great  Latin  na 
tion  is  an  aristocratic  republic.  So  that,  if  they  called  me 
American  on  account  of  my  political  faith,  they  were  right. 
But  they  were  wilful  disseminators  of  falsehoods  when  they 
made  me  appear  as  a  blind  worshipper  of  France.  I  contend 
ed  and  I  contend  that  next  to  the  United  States  England  was 
and  is  the  most  liberal  country  in  the  world,  so  far  as  political 
freedom  is  concerned,  and  in  spite  of  her  immense  faults. 

I  have  been  compelled  to  make  this  statement  in  order 
to  show  that  I  was  a  logical  American  long  before  political 
and  personal  upheavals  brought  me  to  this  country.  In  Europe, 
lecturing  and  teaching  Philosophy  of  History,  I  advocated  this 
doctrine.  And  even  in  a  course  of  Comparative  Literature,  il 
lustrating  the  works  of  the  greatest  geniuses  of  mankind — 
Job,  Isaiah,  Homer,  Aeschylus,  Lucretius,  Dante,  Shakes 
peare,  and  Moliere,  I  paid  the  greatest  homage  it  was  pos 
sible  for  me  to  America  in  the  person  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emer 
son. 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  7 

In  the  United  States  of  America,  from  the  moment  of  my 
landing  to  the  very  moment  I  am  dictating  these  pages,  I  have 
preached,  day  in  and  day  out,  month  in  and  month  out,  year 
in  and  year  out,  the  very  same  doctrine,  from  the  platform, 
from  the  newspapers,  in  my  essays  and  poems.  Of  course, 
having  become  a  naturalized  citizen,  I  found  that  many  of  the 
natives  of  this  country — in  politics  and  out  of  politics — were 
making  blunders,  which  would,  sooner  or  later,  hurl  the 
United  States  into  the  turmoil  and  the  uncertainties  of  Europ 
ean  countries.  And  I  raised  a  voice  of  protest  and  warning 
meeting  with  ridicule,  scorn  and  contempt.  Why?  Often 
people,  born  in  other  countries,  see  things  from  a  more  objec 
tive  standpoint,  and  judge  with  serene  impartiality  things 
which  natives,  blinded  by  passion,  belittle  or  exaggerate  as 
partisan  motives  dictate. 

They  try  to  convince  me  that  an  American  scholar  has 
published  the  best  book  on  Cavour ;  but  he  has  been  particular 
ly  honored  by  the  Italian  government,  and  monarchical  gov 
ernments  in  general  do  not  bestow  honors  on  impartial  his 
torians.  Truth  always  hurts.  My  warnings,  inspired  only  by 
the  unmistakable  lessons  of  history,  were  not  well  received, 
just  because  they  were  undeniable  truths.  Italians  were  ac 
cusing  me  of  treachery  because  I  was  making  relentless  efforts 
to  transform  my  countrymen  into  good  Americans  (and  this, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  I  always  championed  the  decent  sons 
of  Sunny  Italy,  who  were  belittled,  offensively  nicknamed,  per 
secuted  by  men  who  came  to  better  judgment  only  when  they 
begun  to  realize  that  they  needed  badly  their  votes  to  remain 
in  public  life).  Americans  felt  that  a  citizen  born  in  a  for 
eign  land  had  no  right  to  give  them  suggestions  about  the 
way  of  conducting  themselves,  and  their  vanity,  false  pride, 
conceitedness  and  sometimes  ignorance,  induced  them  to  ridi 
cule,  abuse  and  persecute  me.  But  I  had  and  I  have  a  message 
to  deliver,  and  I  went  and  go  ahead.  People  who  have  been  busy 
writing  calumnies  about  me,  doing  their  level  best  to  deprive 
me  of  my  honest  daily  bread,  ridiculing  doctrines  their  limited 
knowledge  and  their  natural  pretentious  asininity  could  not 
comprehend,  paying  white  slavers,  deserters  from  the  army 
and  German  spies  to  besmirch  me,  can  continue  their  nefar 
ious  work  to  their  hearts'  content.  My  self-respect,  and  the 
pity  I  have  for  their  mental  chronic  coprostasis  and  their  mor 
al  ugliness,  advise  me  to  pay  no  attention  to  them,  and  to  go 
forward,  repeating  the  world-famous  verse  of  Dante: 

Non  ti  curar  di  lor,  ma  guarda  e  passa. 

George  Ticknor,  an  American  from  Boston,  wrote  the 
best  history  of  the  Spanish  Literature,  and  Carlo  Botta,  an 
Italian  from  Piedmont,  wrote  the  best  "History  of  the  War  of 
Independence  of  the  United  States  of  America." 


8  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

II 

I  had  not  been  in  America  six  months  ere  a  truth — self- 
evident  and  full  of  menace  for  the  future — was  revealed  to  my 
mind  and  filled  my  heart  with  grave  concern.  New  York,  the 
great  metropolis  of  America,  was  by  no  means  an  American 
city.  It  was  a  mosaic  of  nationalities  not  blended,  but  abso 
lutely  distinct,  separated  from  each  other  and  even  antago 
nistic,  kept  together  by  selfishness,  greed  and  resentment,  if 
not  contempt  for  the  glorious  country  which  offered  them  hos 
pitality,  freedom,  independence  from  slavery  and  oppression, 
chance  to  become  men,  when  in  the  countries  of  their  birth 
they  had  been  little  better  than  human  cattle.  Poor  devils 
who  had  no  education  and  no  human  ways,  were  praising  at 
the  top  of  their  voices  the  countries  of  their  birth,  saying 
everything  mean  of  the  great  American  commonwealth,  and 
living  sordidly  and  even  shamefully  to  save  money,  in  order 
to  go  back  and  live — they  were  saying — in  the  old  country, 
among  civilized  beings.  They  were  encouraged  in  their  base 
ingratitude  and  ignorance  by  men  of  their  own  nationalities, 
and  even  by  representatives  of  their  governments,  who  were 
parasitically  living  in  comfort  and  even  in  luxury  at  the  ex 
pense  of  them.  Among  the  Italians,  the  Russians,  the  Aus- 
trians,  the  Germans,  the  French,  and  every  other  nationality, 
the  private  bankers,  the  interpreters,  the  publishers  of  news 
papers  as  ignorant  as  their  readers,  but  cunning  and  rapa 
cious  beyond  measure,  the  brokers,  the  real  estate  sharks,  the 
unscrupulous  labor  agents  and  padrones,  the  middlemen,  who 
acted  as  go-between  the  dispensers  of  police,  judicial  and  po 
litical  protection,  the  shysters,  and  even  several  professional 
men,  had  an  interest  to  keep  their  unfortunate  countrymen  in 
ignorance  and  abjection,  because  they  were  harvesting  large 
profits  by  their  rascality.  But  I  have  to  say  something  about 
it  later  on.  For  the.  present  I  shall  only  point  out  the  truth 
which  impressed  me  and  followed  me  everywhere,  as  Banquo's 
spectre  did  Macbeth. 

Noting  the  large  foreign  population  in  New  York  and  its 
disloyalty  to  the  country,  even  among  many  of  those  who  had 
applied  for  and  been  granted  naturalization  papers,  I  suffered 
untold  agonies,  because  I  knew  that  if  ever  the  United  States 
of  America  would  be  forced  into  war  with  any  of  the  nations 
of  the  earth,  our  country  would  be  betrayed  by  the  very  men 
who  had  found  in  America  bread,  dignity,  protection  and 
opportunity.  And  I  raised  the  cry  for  better  citizenship,  for 
better  education,  for  the  spread  of  real  understanding  and 
patriotism  among  the  children  of  the  slums,  the  human  brutes 
of  the  over-crowded  foreign  boarding  houses,  the  oppressed  of 
all  countries,  who  had  come  here  only  to  make  money,  and  who 
regard  the  sacred  soil  of  America  as  a  free  for  all  fight  for  af 
fluence,  no  matter  how  obtained.  I  was  not  worrying  very 
much  about  the  spy  system  of  foreign  governments,  because  its 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  9 

cradle  is  in  the  foreign  embassies  and  consular  offices;  and  it 
is  the  duty  of  the  Secretaryship  of  State  and  of  the  Depart 
ment  of  Justice  to  uncover  it.  There  is  not  a  government,  not 
one,  which  has  not  its  spy  system,  and  the  chief  representa 
tives  of  it  are  the  military  and  naval  attaches  of  the  embas 
sies.  Their  brilliant  uniforms,  their  strong  physique  and 
handsome  figures,  their  insinuating  manners  and  methods, 
must  be  wisely  employed  to  gain  the  esteem,  the  friendship, 
the  admiration,  the  love  of  the  wives,  daughters  and  sisters  of 
men  entrusted  with  military,  naval  and  state  secrets.  How 
many  times  the  betrayal  of  a  very  important  secret  of  state 
has  been  preceded  by  the  ruin  of  a  woman,  by  the  tragedy  of  a 
heart,  by  the  disruption  of  a  family!  And  how  many  times 
the  position  is  reversed!  Aristocratic  prostitutes  take  the 
place  of  the  attaches  and  with  their  wiles  make  fools  and 
traitors  of  men  of  previous  unimpeachable  reputation !  Money 
has  been  seldom  the  tempter  of  generals,  admirals  and  states 
men:  Aspasia  and  Phryne  often.  Cherchez  la  femme! 

The  most  fantastic  of  all  fiction  could  not  equal  in  emo 
tional,  sensational,  psychological,  unexpected  development  and 
climax  any  of  the  plots  carefully  studied,  planned  and  exe 
cuted  by  many  of  those  priests  and  priestesses  of  evil,  called 
spies.  Edgar  Allen  Poe  could  be  the  only  historian  for  them. 
But  I  am  referring  to  them  only  incidentally.  My  real  concern 
was  and  is  with  the  greatest  menace  to  the  security  of  the 
country,  constituted  by  the  very  elements  I  have  been  talking 
about.  Politicians,  who  wish  only  to  be  kept  in  office  or  to 
conquer  it,  gave  and  give  me  the  laugh,  because  they  have  no 
other  patriotism  than  that  of  their  own  pocket  and  power. 
And  when  they  show  so  much  devotion  to  the  country,  I  think 
of  the  words  of  a  wise  editor  who  beautifully  said  that  the 
patriotic  effusion  of  the  enemy  is  a  false  flag  covering  contra 
band  goods.  Perhaps  a  few  words  about  espionage  will  not  be 
wasted  in  this  eventful  moment  of  our  history. 

Ill 

Espionage  is  as  old  as  the  history  of  the  world.  A  spy  is 
the  basest  of  all  knaves.  Whoever  said  that  it  takes  a  thief  to 
catch  a  thief  was  practically  right.  Only  a  criminal  can  in 
dulge  in  criminal  pursuits,  as  it  is  that  of  spying  his  fellow  be 
ing  in  order  to  do  him  harm.  Leo  Tolstoy  said  to  me,  during 
a  conversation  I  had  with  him  in  his  estate  of  Yasniaga-Poli- 
ana  nearly  thirty  years  ago:  "The  spy  is  the  meanest,  lowest 
and  basest  animal  in  creation.  I  love  everybody,  no  matter 
how  low  in  the  human  scale.  But  I  cannot  look  at  a  spy  with 
out  experiencing  the  creeping  sensation  a  clean  man  suffers 
at  the  sight  of  vermin."  The  definitions  given  of  spies  by  fa 
mous  men  are  well  known.  The  purest  men  in  the  world  al- 
toays  had  a  holy  horror  of  spies.  Only  unscrupulous  poli 
ticians  and  rulers  said  practically  that  no  government  could 


10  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

do  without  the  scourge.  I  like  to  pick  here  and  there  what 
some  of  nature's  greatest  noblemen  had  to  say  about  spies; 
hear  them : 

"Every  spy  has  in  his  veins  and  arteries  the  blood  of 
Judas  Iscariot  and  lago."  (Garibaldi). 

"You  find  all  forms  of  criminality  blended  into  a  spy." 
(Emil  Zola.) 

"Knead  putrefaction  and  you  have  a  spy."  (Victorien 
Sardou). 

"The  spy  is  the  offspring  of  Cain."    (Gustave  Flaubert). 

"How  can  you  avoid  to  execrate  the  ones  who  with  ne 
farious  inclination  find  work  for  the  executioner?"  (Leo  Tol 
stoy). 

"Spies  are  the  disgrace  of  mankind."  (Gustavo  Modena). 

And  I  could  give  a  hundred  more,  all  of  men  famous  in 
the  history  of  the  world's  heroism,  literature,  science,  philoso 
phy  and  art.  But  as  the  kind  of  spies  I  have  reference  to  now 
are  the  secret  agents  of  foreign  offices,  and  as  Germany  has 
in  this  particular  and  nefarious  endeavor  excelled  every 
other  nation  in  the  world,  even  Japan,  I  like  to  quote  here 
what  the  foremost  statesmen  of  modern  times — Napoleon 
Bonaparte,  Cavour  and  Bismarck — had  to  say  of  political 
spies,  because  their  definitions  are  very  illustrative  of  their 
aims,  and  quite  a  contribution  to  the  study  of  the  Teutonic 
and  the  Allies'  history  of  activities  in  the  present  appalling 
conflagration.  The  great  Napoleon,  whose  moral  character 
has  been  depicted  by  Madam  De  Stael  better  than  by  anyone  of 
his  historians,  wrote :  "Spies?  They  are  a  political  necessity." 
And  his  comment  stopped  there.  Napoleon  III,  who  was,  after 
all,  a  modern  man  and  sovereign,  moaned:  "To  be  a  spy?  A 
nefarious  job."  But  the  arch-demagogue  of  modern  times — 
Leon  Gambetta — made  liberal  use  of  spies  ,and  yet  had  the  ef 
frontery  to  write:  "Spies — especially  political  spies — are  a 
proof  of  the  extreme  state  of  baseness  of  those  who  employ 
them."  With  these  words  Gambetta  wrote  his  death  warrant 
before  the  tribunal  of  history. 

Cavour,  the  most  wonderful  and  honest  statesman  of  mod 
ern  history  and  one  of  the  purest  glories  of  civilized  Italy, 
which  produced  the  greatest  of  all  masters  of  statecraft — per 
haps  the  most  commanding  personality  in  the  statesmanship 
of  all  times — Niccolo  Macchiavelli  (misunderstood,  distorted 
and  libelled  by  all  the  rag  peddlers  of  moral  pruriency,  and  by 
all  the  short-sighted  and  revengeful  second-hand  dealers  in 
philosophical  and  theological  junk) ;  Cavour  made  the  follow 
ing  statement  and  lived  up  to  it  to  the  letter :  "It  is  better  to 
meet  with  a  reverse  than  to  win  a  victory  by  the  help  of 
spies."  I  have  mentioned  the  glorious  name  of  Macchiavel 
li  ,  because  he  did  more  than  invent  the  system  of  statecraft 
and  the  art  of  war.  He  predicted  many  of  the  things  which 
are  happening  now,  and  taught  lessons  that,  had  they  been 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  11 

learned  and  put  into  practice  by  the  allies,  the  Central  Em 
pires  would  have  been  defeated  long  ago,  and  the  sacred  soil 
of  Italy  would  not  have  been  invaded  by  the  barbarians. 
Whatever  in  Italy  was  connected  with  the  inspiring  names 
of  Mazzini,  Garibaldi  and  Cavour  and  their  best  lieutenants, 
was  pure  and  noble  and  great  and  immortal.  When  people 
departed  from  the  path  shown  by  them,  everything  tumbled 
down.  I  had  and  I  have  no  love  for  the  House  of  Savoy,  no 
more  than  I  have  for  any  other  royal  or  imperial  house;  but 
it  is  only  fair  on  my  part  to  admit  that  she  deserves  praise  and 
admiration  for  many  worthy  deeds  she  has  performed,  from 
the  appearance  of  Humbert  the  Whitehand  to  the  present 
time.  With  few  exceptions,  she  has  been  perhaps  the  most 
honorable  royal  house  in  the  world.  The  republicans  of  Italy 
never  forgave  and  never  will  forgive  the  hideous  crime  of 
Aspromonte,  where  Garibaldi,  after  he  had  given  a  kingdom 
to  Victor  Immanuel  II,  was  infamously  crippled  by  the  troops 
of  the  latter.  It  is  true,  however,  that  such  an  infamy  would 
never  have  occurred  had  Cavour  been  alive.  At  the  time 
Signor  Urbano  Rattazzi  was  prime  minister  of  Italy,  the  one 
who  wrote:  "I  greatly  blame  the  idea  of  making  use  of  the 
treacherous  and  loathsome  work  of  spies,  but  at  times  they 
are,  indeed,  a  painful  necessity."  What  a  difference  between 
the  clear-cut,  sharp,  trenchant,  manly,  inspiring  statement  of 
Cavour,  and  the  obliquitous,  hypocritical  and  cowardly  dec 
laration  of  Rattazzi!  But  to  ask  honor  of  Rattazzi  is  as  to 
ask  honey  of  a  rattlesnake.  He  was  the  husband  of  the  no 
torious  Madame  Rattazzi,  whose  exploits  are  still  green  in  the 
memory  of  us  all. 

Bismarck  was  more  explicit,  but  more  brutally  hypocrit 
ical  than  Ra'ttazzi.  It  is  true,  however,  that  Moltke,  the  Deus 
ex  machina  of  the  Franco-Prussian  war,  had  frankly  defined 
the  trend  of  Germany,  when  he  stated:  "In  life  we  are  in 
deed  compelled  to  walk  in  mud."  Bismarck  wrote:  "I  have 
nothing  but  contempt  for  spies,  but  I  make  liberal  use  of 
them  because  they  are  indispensable  to  me.  Nevertheless,  I 
mistrust  very  much  women  spies,  because  they  can  be  easily 
bought  by  the  enemy."  And  yet,  in  spite  of  his  dislike  for 
secret  service  women,  Bismarck  made  large  use  of  them. 

Tartuffe  of  Moliere  is  for  me  the  prototype  of  all  spies. 
And  because  the  foremost  German  spy  resembles  Tartuffe  so 
much,  a  little  sketch  of  him  is  not  out  of  place,  especially  if 
you  take  into  consideration  that  he  was  the  genius  and  the 
founder  of  the  modern  spy  system.  Stieber  was  his  name, 
and  Bismarck  proclaimed  him  the  king  of  spies.  A  man  of 
great  talent,  education  and  nerve,  exactly  as  Tartuffe  by  Or- 
gon,  Stieber,  in  1847,  was  befriended  and  given  a  home  by 
an  industrial  of  Silesia,  who  took  him  into  his  house,  gave 
him  the  management  of  his  business,  introduced  him  to  his 
friends  and  associates,  and  did  not  dislike  the  discovery  that 


12  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

he  had  inflamed  with  love  the  heart  of  his  niece.  Stieber, 
affecting  a  noble  heart,  a  great  love  for  justice  and  freedom, 
and  a  deep  concern  for  the  welfare  of  the  people,  posing  as  a 
social  democrat,  preached  to  all  he  could  reach  the  doctrine 
of  the  rights  of  man,  and  found  many  who  had  the  same 
principles  and  many  more  he  converted.  But  in  1848,  after 
the  famous  revolutionary  outbreaks  which  seemed  to  have 
in  Paris  their  storm  center,  the  factory  of  the  benefactor  of 
Stieber  and  the  shops  of  his  friends  were  filled  with  liberal 
ferment,  and  became  the  houses  of  refuge  for  many  of  the 
political  refugees.  The  Prussian  government  suddenly  falls 
upon  the  factories,  imprisons  the  owners,  and  arrests  men 
galore.  Exiles,  stiff  sentences,  capital  punishments  follow. 
Tartuffe,  in  the  comedy  by  Moliere,  when  discovered,  ends  as 
men  of  his  kind  richly  deserve.  But  Stieber  elopes  with  his 
benefactor's  niece — who  discovers  too  late  that  the  man  was 
a  spy — and  goes  to  Berlin,  where  King  Friedrich  Wilhelm 
gratefully  greets  him,  appoints  him  chief  of  police  of  the 
kingdom,  gives  him  extraordinary  powers,  and  requests  him 
to  spy  the  very  members  of  the  royal  family.  Kings  have  al 
ways  been  more  or  less  suspicious  of  their  families.  The 
Prussian  ruler  did  what  other  sovereigns  did  and  do.  Have 
you  not  perused  the  confessions  of  Nicholas  Romanoff,  former 
czar  of  Russia? 

A  few  years  after,  Bismarck  becomes  the  molder  of  the 
destinies  of  Prussia,  and  of  the  future  of  the  German  em 
pire.  Stieber  becomes  the  chief  instrument  for  Bismarck's 
plotting,  and  his  system  reaches  the  highest  peak  of  man 
agement,  organization  and  efficiency.  Stieber  had  submit 
ted  to  the  king  a  project  for  the  reorganization  of. secret  serv 
ice,  and  encouraged  and  empowered  to  go  forward  and  stop 
at  nothing,  he  had  become  acquainted  with  the  secrets  of 
everybody,  princes,  ambassadors,  generals,  members  of  the 
cabinet,  politicians,  courtiers,  ladies  of  high  rank,  people  of 
influence  in  every  walk  of  life.  He  sees  everything.  He  dis 
guises  himself  as  army  and  navy  officer,  pastor,  confessor, 
butler,  man  under  the  influence  of  liquor,  peasant,  simpleton, 
in  order  to  uncover  society,  family,  workingmen's  secrets. 
Bismarck  unfolds  to  him  his  plan.  He  is  going  to  build  a 
German  empire  headed  by  Prussia.  In  order  to  see  the  tri 
umph  of  Teutonic  hegemony,  which  was  the  dream  and  goal 
of  his  life,  it  was  indispensable  to  crush  France;  but  such 
task  could  not  be  accomplished  unless  Austria  would  be  put 
out  of  the  way.  Stieber  understands,  and  goes  to  Bohemia, 
where  he  prepares  the  ground  for  the  safe  passage  of  the 
Prussian  army.  Wonderful  is  his  sagacity,  and  his  plan  is 
highly  successful.  Prussia  wins.  Austria  is  humiliated.  At 
his  return  to  Berlin,  Stieber  is  received  as  a  national  hero. 
The  king,  who  had  already  conferred  on  him,  the  cross  of  the 
red  eagle,  showers  new  honors  upon  him.  The  provinces  of 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  13 

Alsace  and  Lorrain  are  needed.  He  is  asked  to  organize  the 
espionage  in  France,  which  has  to  pave  the  road  to  a  Prus 
sian  victory.  Before  he  is  ready  to  undertake  the  gigantic 
task,  Stieber  asks  full  powers  and  one  million  and  five  hun 
dred  thousand  marks  in  cold  cash,  which  are  given  him  with 
out  hesitation.  He  goes  to  Paris,  recruiting  eighteen  hundred 
spies,  instructing  and  directing  them  with  the  utmost  care, 
sending  them  in  every  department  of  France,  and  directing 
them  to  report  to  intelligence  centers  established  in  the  cities 
of  Geneva,  Lausanne,  Berlin  and  Brussels.  From  Paris  he 
requested  the  government  at  Berlin  to  furnish  him,  with  five 
thousand  farmers  and  gardeners,  nine  thousand  girls  to  em 
ploy  as  waitresses  and  maids  in  cafes,  restaurants  and  hotels ; 
seven  hundred  officers  on  leave  of  absence  to  be  employed  in 
French  government  offices,  four  hundred  beautiful  and  gay 
Prussian  girls  to  be  placed  in  Parisian  wine  houses,  and  four 
hundred  accomplished  and  nice  young  ladies  to  be  govern 
esses  and  maids  in  the  best  homes  in  the  capital  of  France. 
The  strategy  of  Moltke  and  the  master  political  mind  of  Bis 
marck  could  not  have  taken  Napoleon  prisoner  at  Sedan,  dic 
tated  the  peace  of  Versailles,  and  consolidated  the  German 
empire  without  Stieber,  the  spy. 

The  success  of  Stieber  induced  the  German  government 
to  continue  and  improve  the  spy  system.  In  spite  of  the  con 
fession  of  Bismarck  that  he  mistrusted  spies  in  petticoats,  for 
certain  information  they  relied  and  rely  chiefly  on  women.  Ger 
man  women,  with  many  accomplishments,  were  sent  to  Eng 
land,  Russia,  Italy,  France,  America,  whenever  they  needed  to 
spread  their  nets  for  future  operations.  Those  women  often 
write  poetry,  compose  music,  speak  several  languages,  con 
tract  marriages  with  great  facility,  and  bigamy  seems  to  be  a 
pastime  for  them,  use  philanthropy  as  a  decoy,  art  as  a  pro 
curer,  smooth  calumny  as  the  most  efficient  weapon  to  dis 
credit  those  who  know  them  and  are  in  a  position  to  set  the 
minds  of  people  thinking.  You  often  find  them  married  to 
men  handsome,  smooth,  accomplished,  and  much  younger  than 
themselves,  who  have  the  mind  of  foxes,  the  heart  of  tigers, 
the  voracity  of  wolves,  the  greediness  of  misers,  the  man 
ners  of  college  boys.  Their  chief  task  is  to  seduce  and  enslave 
to  them  women  of  public  officials  in  a  position  to  give  valuable 
information ;  but  there  is  no  infamy  which  would  deter  them. 
The  more  nefarious  the  job,  the  better  they  like  it.  Many  of 
the  women  in  the  employment  of  the  German  spy  system  had 
to  become  the  mistresses  of  men  in  power,  in  order  to  win 
their  confidence  and  steal  state  secrets,  the  wives  of  men  of 
the  nationalities  mentioned  for  the  purpose  of  performing 
their  nefarious  tasks  with  more  freedom  and  arousing  less 
suspicion,  to  be  the  secretaries  and  confidantes  of  the  ladies 
of  army  officers,  cabinet  members,  diplomats,  employees  of 
state,  navy  and  general  staff  departments.  People  who  be- 


14  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

lieve,  for  instance,  that  German  spies  in  America  are  ex 
clusively  German  are  greatly  mistaken.  Some  of  the  worst 
German  spies  are  men  from  allied  countries,  and  even  Ameri 
cans,  native  born  Americans  of  pure  Anglo-Saxon  descent. 
Do  I  say  men  alone?  No!  Women,  as  well,  and  many  of 
them;  and  men  and  women,  conspicuous  in  society,  in  poli 
tics,  in  industrial,  educational,  philanthropic  and  religious  en 
deavor.  What  Stieber  did  in  France  is  done  every  day  in 
America,  under  the  very  eyes  and  many  times  with  the  com 
placency  of  municipal,  county,  state  and  national  authorities. 

I  know  of  real  patriots — pure,  unselfish,  capable,  incor 
ruptible  citizens — who  think  and  perform  what  there  is  of 
nobler  in  the  life  of  man  and  of  higher  in  the  history  of  the 
world,  set  aside  as  stumbling-stones  in  a  footpath,  if  not 
pitied  as  fools  or  spurned  as  imposters;  and  of  smooth,  insin 
uating,  honey-tongued  and  candid-looking  rascals,  who,  under 
the  mask  of  patriotism,  hid  the  blackest  plans  of  treachery, 
pushed  forward,  acclaimed  as  models  of  virtue,  trusted  with 
delicate  positions  in  the  service  of  the  country.  Pan-German 
ism  has  attracted  in  its  orbit  prejudice,  ignorance,  greed,  ras 
cality,  rapacity,  and  has  made  capital  of  that  natural  tend 
ency  of  the  rabble,  which  pays  attention  to  gossip  and  cal 
umny  and  ignores  praise  and  virtue,  is  jealous  of  happiness 
in  others  and  enjoys  their  misfortunes.  A  certain  famous  re 
ligious  sect  which  became  celebrated  in  history,  more  for  po 
litical  intrigue  and  power  than  for  piety,  admonished,  refer 
ring  to  the  most  important  harm  to  be  done  to  their  enemies : 
"Calomniez,  calomniez;  il  en  reste  toujours  quelque  chose." 

People  who  are  shocked  by  German  methods,  and  are  in 
dignant  only  after  the  awful  crimes  of  the  last  three  years, 
and  after  a  chancellor  called  treaties  "scraps  of  paper,"  are 
justifiable,  because  they  knew  nothing  of  Teutonic  intrigue  and 
perversity.  But  statesmen,  politicians,  and  scholars,  who  in 
their  posthumous  resipiscence,  raise  their  voice  of  bitter  re 
monstrance,  must  be  congratulated  only  on  account  of  their 
conversion  and  repentance.  When  they  were  in  a  position  to 
avoid  the  conflagration,  or  to  prepare  for  future  emergencies, 
they  fornicated  with  Germany.  State  departments  for  years 
and  years  have  been  aware  of  what  was  going  on.  We  deal 
with  recent  events.  The  times  of  the  war  for  the  independence 
of  America  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  present  conflict.  Ger 
mans  who  came  during  that  time  to  America  had  the  right 
spirit,  made  admirable  citizens,  and  their  progeny  are  worthy 
citizens  of  the  United  States  of  America.  General  Muhlen- 
berg?  Why,  he  was  born  and  raised  in  Pennsylvania.  Hem- 
rich  Melchoir  Muhlenberg,  his  father,  was  born  at  Finbeck, 
Prussia,  one  year  before  the  birth  of  Frederick  the  Great,  by 
whom  he  was  preceded  by  one  year  to  the  grave.  Educated 
for  the  Lutheran  ministry,  being  a  man  of  pure  mind,  heart 
and  body,  he  was  disgusted  with  the  injustices  and  the  un- 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  15 

godly  tendencies  of  the  Prussian  government  and  emigrated 
young  to  the  United  States,  settling  at  Trappe,  Pa.,  where  his 
son,  the  celebrated  American  Revolutionary  general  and  politi 
cian,  John  Peter  Gabriel,  was  born  in  1746.  Henry  Melchoir 
was  founder  of  the  Lutheran  Church  in  the  United  States, 
but  his  descendents,  who  became  all  very  distinguished  citi 
zens,  were  Episcopalians,  and  it  is  worth  while  to  mention 
Henry  Augustus  Muhlenberg,  preacher  and  politician,  who 
was  minister  of  the  United  States  to  Austria  from  1838  to 
1840,  and  William  Augustus  Muhlenberg,  pastor  of  St.  Luke, 
in  New  York,  and  a  famous  hymnologist.  Who  among  the 
Protestant  worshippers  is  not  familiar  with  his  hymn,  "I 
Would  not  Live  Alway"? 

Mr.  Roosevelt — to  mention  no  others — in  the  times  poli 
ticians  were  praising  the  Kaiser  to  the  skies — forgot  that  the 
supreme  rule  of  Prussia's  political  morals  was  set  by  Freder 
ick  the  Great  when  he  wrote :  "If  it  will  be  profitable  to  us  to 
be  honest,  honest  we  will  be;  but  should  crookedness  be  nec 
essary,  crooks  shall  we  be."  It  is,  after  all,  the  creed  of  all 
governments,  which  are  very  far  from  practicing  the  splendid 
rule  set  by  Montesquieu  in  his  much  discussed  "L'Esprit  des 
Lois" :  "Honor  shall  be  the  rule  of  monarchies,  justice  of  re 
publics,  fear  of  despotic  governments."  The  spy  system,  as 
even  the  blindest  of  the  blind  can  see,  is  the  very  negation  of 
honor  and  justice. 

IV. 

Of  course,  all  history  shows  that  there  is  not  a  single 
people,  no  matter  how  glorious  or  unfortunate,  that  has  not 
been  guilty  of  the  very  same  crimes  which  they  reproach  in 
others.  Homo  hominis  lupus.  They  suffer  from  others  what 
they  made  others  suffer  from  them.  Modern  history  differs 
from  ancient  only  in  ways  and  means ;  the  aims  are  the  same. 
The  legendary  homeric  trap  of  the  Greeks  to  the  Trojans  has 
nothing  for  envy  to  Stieber's  spies  or  to  Austrian  and  German 
soldiers  invading  Italy  in  Italian  uniforms,  and  preaching  the 
gospel  of  brotherhood  with  lips,  and  keeping  the  stilleto  of  the 
assassin  hidden  in  the  treacherous  sleeve  and  ready  to  mur 
der  mercilessly.  Many  of  the  people,  who  are  so  much  shock 
ed  by  German  cruelties,  have  done  the  same  thing  in  a  dif 
ferent,  but  not  less  reproachable  way.  The  soldiers  sent  to 
China  to  repress  the  Boxers  practised  outrages  that  make  us 
shudder  with  horror.  Officers  oppressed,  tortured,  murdered 
poor  Chinamen,  in  order  to  rob  them  of  their  treasures.  Many, 
who  had  gone  there  poor,  came  back  rich.  The  trial  of  an 
Italian  officer — Modugno — cannot  be  forgotten.  Was  our 
great  country  always  free  of  blame?  In  order  to  rob  the 
Indians,  did  not  the  citizens  of  this  country  follow  to  the  let 
ter  many  of  the  methods  we  curse  in  the  Germans?  Did 
England  not  use  the  greatest  of  all  callings — the  ministry  of 


16  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

religion — to  expropriate  savages  of  their  holdings?  I  can 
not  read,  without  a  sense  of  deep  emotion,  the  magnificent 
speech  delivered  by  Red  Jacket,  chief  of  the  Senecas,  in  the 
summer  of  1805,  after  the  Rev.  Mr.  Cram  had  outlined  to  the 
six  nations  the  work  he  intended  to  do  among  them.  The 
words  of  Red  Jacket  sound  as  a  warning  to  all  mankind,  to 
all  Christianity,  rather,  who  seem  to  have  forgotten  the  im 
mortal  teachings  of  the  Master:  "Ye  shall  know  them  by 
their  fruits.  Do  men  gather  grapes  of  thorns,  or  figs  of  this 
tles?"  "Brother,"  said  Red  Jacket,  "we  are  told  that  you 
have  been  preaching  to  the  white  people  in  this  place.  These 
people  are  our  neighbors.  We  are  acquainted  with  them. 
We  will  wait  a  little  to  see  what  effect  your  preaching  has 
upon  them.  If  we  find  it  does  them  good,  makes  them  honest 
and  less  disposed  to  cheat  Indians,  we  will  consider  again  of 
what  you  have  said." 

We  are  right  in  being  indignant  for  what  has  been  done 
to  the  poor  people  of  Belgium.  But  did  the  Belgians  treat 
any  better  the  poor  devils  of  the  Congo?  We  curse  with  sin 
cerity  and  justice  the  wrongs  done  Serbia.  But  how  can 
we  forget  the  history  of  intrigues,  crimes  and  bloodshed  of 
that  unfortunate  country's  government?  In  the  times  of 
the  scandals  of  King  Milan  and  Queen  Natalie  the  writer  of 
these  pages  went  to  Belgrade  to  gather  information  and  write 
letters  for  newspapers.  We  pity  Poland,  the  Niobe  of  na 
tions,  and  I  must  confess  that  I  have  a  particularly  soft  spot 
in  my  heart  for  a  country  for  the  independence  of  which  my 
family's  blood  was  shed.  And  yet  history,  which  is  an  unde 
niable  testimonial,  shows  that  when  Poland  was  powerful 
she  did  everything  to  oppress,  dismember,  ruin  Russia.  The 
glorious  name  of  Kosma  Minin,  the  poor  butcher  of  Nijni 
Novgorod,  cannot  be  cancelled  from  our  minds.  On  Palm 
Sunday  of  1611,  one  of  the  bloodiest  days  in  the  history  of 
Russia  and  of  mankind,  King  Sigismond  and  his  Polish  sol 
diers,  not  satisfied  with  the  most  atrocious  tyrannies  and 
spoliations  with  which  they  were  oppressing  the  enslaved 
neighbors,  butchered  unmercifully  the  people  of  Moscow. 
The  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  led  in  France  by  the  Duke 
of  Guise,  Catherine  de  Medici,  and  Charles  II,  was  not  more 
atrocious.  The  French  Catholics,  in  order  to  celebrate  the 
wedding  of  Henry  of  Navarre,  butchered  thousands  upon 
thousands  of  Huguenots,  guilty  only  of  believing  in  the  Gos 
pel,  and  noted  for  the  purity  of  their  lives.  The  Polish  op 
pressors  of  Russia  massacred  thousands  upon  thousands  of 
inhabitants  of  Moscow  only  for  the  pleasure  of  making  flow 
rivers  of  innocent  blood.  But  from  the  massacre  of  St.  Bar 
tholomew  sprung  a  religious  war  vividly  registered  in  the 
pages  of  history,  and  came  to  America  that  Huguenot  seed 
which  still  has  in  itself  the  power  of  regenerating  this  country 
of  promise;  and  from  the  Moscow  butchery  came  the  revolt 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  17 

against  the  Polish  oppressor  led  by  Kosma  Minin,  the  butcher, 
and  by  Pogiarski,  the  soldier;  and  from  the  revolution  was 
born  the  dynasty  of  the  Romanoffs,  which  ended  so  pitifully 
and  ignominiously  in  the  recent  Russian  upheaval,  which,  on 
account  of  the  vanity,  the  inefficiency  and  the  cowardice  of  the 
supreme  demagogue,  Kerensky,  has  been  so  sterile  in  results 
and  so  rich  in  new  misfortunes.  I  wish  to  say,  in  order  to 
invite  the  reflection  of  the  reader,  that  the  adverse  fate  of  the 
Romanoffs  was  sealed  since  the  second  ruler  of  that  dynasty, 
Alexis,  created  that  execrable  tribunal  of  state  inquisition, 
the  Secret  Chancery,  in  the  name  of  which  the  foremost  citi 
zens  could  be  arrested,  jailed,  tortured,  deprived  of  life, 
through  the  accusations  or  even  insinuations  of  the  most  un 
reliable  wretches  in  the  country.  Institutions  of  the  kind 
are  always  pernicious.  They  are  the  cornerstone  of  that  evil 
building  of  degradation,  depravity,  and  disintegration,  which 
sooner  or  later,  will  ring  the  fatal  knell  of  agony  and  death 
of  a  nation.  Through  institutions  of  the  kind  human  society 
becomes  the  prey  of  that  most  abominable  of  taints — hypoc 
risy  and  duplicity — which  slowly  but  fatally  rot  the  very 
nature  of  the  nation,  and  carries  it  to  dissolution  and  ruin. 
The  law  which  God  made  to  individuals  applies  to  nations. 
Death  is  the  salary  of  sin.  Many  of  the  present  sufferings, 
uncertainties,  deprivations  of  the  Russian  people  are  to  be 
traced  to  the  very  cause  I  have  referred  to. 

And  what  I  say  of  Russia  is  true  of  every  other  people, 
ancient  or  modern:  the  East,  the  West,  Nineveh,  Babylon, 
Egypt,  Israel,  Greece,  Persia,  Rome,  Europe,  America.  Sus 
picion  and  the  execrable  spy  system  made  of  people  created  by 
God  in  His  likeness  nothing  but  human  vermin.  La  Roche 
foucauld  says  that  hypocrisy  is  the  homage  that  vice  pays  to 
virtue.  No.  For  mercy's  sake,  no!  Hypocrisy  is  the  ruina 
tion  of  individuals  and  of  nations.  Germany  will  be  punish 
ed.  No  matter  how  loud  her  cry :  "Gott  strafe  England !  Gott 
strafe  Italien!  Gott  strafe  Amerika!"  The  punishment  will 
fatally  descend  on  the  Kaiser  and  his  allies.  The  spy  system 
alone  is  enough  to  shake  Germany  from  her  very  foundations. 
But  other  nations  should  take  care!  When  I  referred  to 
Italy  and  Cavour,  I  did  it  for  a  purpose.  I  wished  to  illus 
trate  the  truth  of  my  contention.  Rome  had  her  great  faults. 
She  did  an  immense  amount  of  good  to  every  nation  she  con 
quered,  but  she  oppressed  and  spoliated,  too;  and  she  had 
to  suffer  for  it.  But  the  good  she  had  done  made  her  spirit 
survive  and  be  a  blessing  to  mankind.  Middle  ages  gave  Italy 
glories,  and  sufferings,  and  divisions,  and  oppressions,  and 
tyrannies  of  all  kinds;  made  of  her  sacred  soil  the  coveting 
and  battle  ground  of  all  tyrants  and  the  bloody  platform  of 
her  internecine  enmities,  discords  and  fratricide  wars.  But 
her  spirit  survived.  In  the  darkest  moment  of  her  hopes, 
Macchiavelli  sent  to  the  centuries  to  come  his  prophetic  word 


18  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

of  unity,  independence  and  freedom.  Misfortunes  accumu 
lated,  but  the  voice  did  not  die,  the  spirit  lived  and  worked. 
Germans,  French,  Spaniards,  Austrians  alternated  their  ne 
farious  work  of  oppression.  Theocratic  tyrants  widened  her 
wounds  in  the  name  of  a  Redeemer,  whose  very  words  had 
been  of  brotherhood,  freedom  and  justice.  But  her  spirit 
kept  her  spiritually  alive.  When  Vincenzo  Gioberti  publish 
ed  his  immortal  book,  which  has  been  unjustly  forgotten — 
Del  Progresso  Morale  e  Civile  Degli  Italiani — on  the  Civil 
and  Moral  Progress  of  the  Italians — the  spirit  worked  won 
derfully.  And  it  was  the  very  same  spirit  which  brought  to 
the  world  a  new,  magnificent  message  of  civilization,  when 
Cesare  Beccaria,  in  his  immortal  little  book  "On  Crimes  and 
Punishments,"  directed  the  blind  and  ferocious  distributors 
of  law :  "Do  not  kill."  It  is  true  that  they  will  kill  yet,  even 
in  America.  May  God  inspire  some  of  the  readers,  if  they 
happen  to  be  legislators  or  judges,  to  search  their  consciences 
and  repent  for  the  crimes  they  have  committed  in  keeping 
in  the  penal  code  the  capital  punishment  or  in  condemning 
criminals  to  death. 

The  very  same  spirit  inspired  Cavour  to  reach  the  goal, 
when  he  proclaimed:  "L'ltalia  fara'  da  se."  Italy  has  offered 
to  mankind  a  phenomenon  unique  in  history.  All  ancient  na 
tions  had  disappeared  completely.  Israel?  Only  a  brilliant 
souvenir,  an  immortal  testimonial  in  the  most  wonderful  crea 
tion  of  genius,  the  Bible.  Greece?  Only  a  necropolis.  Her 
geniuses  had  shone  thousands  of  years  ago  in  the  firmament 
of  her  glory ;  and  shine  now  only  to  the  students  of  past  ages, 
to  the  scholars,  the  philosophers,  the  artists,  who  drink  in  the 
immortal  fountain  of  their  beauty !  But  Italy !  Always  alive. 
She  lives  in  the  glories  of  her  past  and  in  the  magnificence  of 
her  present.  The  Roman  Forum  is  gone.  But  the  temple 
of  Minerva  is  still  there,  transformed  into  the  Pantheon, 
where  the  remains  of  the  kings  of  the  third  Italy  rest.  And 
St.  Peter,  the  temple  of  mankind,  as  with  the  inspiration  of 
genius  calls  it  Lamartine  in  Graziella,  is  there  and  will  remain 
there  for  the  admiration  of  the  centuries.  Virgil  is  succeeded 
by  Dante,  Cincinnatus  by  Garibaldi,  Cato  and  Cicero  by  Maz- 
zini.  Macchiavelli  comments  the  celebrated  Roman  historian, 
and  writes  "Essays  on  Livy  and  Government,"  which  are  one 
of  the  greatest  contributions  to  the  science  and  art  of  real 
statecraft  in  the  world.  And  comes  Cavour.  Beccaria  had 
reaffirmed  Italy's  belief  in  humanity;  Cavour  states  in  the 
most  emphatic  way  possible  that  without  honor  and  justice 
there  cannot  be  a  government  worthy  of  men's  dignity  and 
of  the  favorable  judgment  of  history.  His  words  about  spies 
are  the  most  inspiring  lesson  to  diplomacy  founded  on  duplic 
ity,  and  to  governments  which  repose  on  the  infamous  theory 
of  Frederick  the  Great.  Cavour  states  the  aims  of  Italian 
history  and  emphasizes  the  meaning  of  Italian  spirit.  Know- 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  19 

ing  that  the  rights  of  nationality  and  the  independence  and 
freedom  of  peoples  of  the  same  race  and  language  and  aspira 
tions  are  the  fundaments  of  international  peace,  and  that 
they  cannot  be  secured  unless  diplomacy  is  shorn  of  her  se 
crecy,  he  squarely  sets  before  nations  the  lesson  dictated  by 
the  much-abused  Macchiavelli  in  the  following  sentences, 
which  are  taken  from  the  History  of  Florence : 

"Whoever  has  no  hopes  of  good,  will  not  be  afraid  of  evil." 

"Every  chain  is  a  great  weight  and  every  alliance  a  con 
straint  to  the  man  accustomed  to  living  free." 

"Who  is  afraid  of  every  man  never  will  be  able  to  trust 
anybody." 

It  is  necessary  to  add,  now  that  I  have  again  said  great 
things  of  Cavour  and  Macchiavelli,  a  few  lines,  in  order  to 
show  that,  in  spite  of  the  perversity  of  the  Italian  rabble, 
which  is  no  better  and  no  worse  than  all  mobs  (did  not  the 
Florentine  Secretary  admonish  us  that  "to  take  pleasure  in 
evil  is  the  nature  of  the  multitude"?),  the  Italian  armies  are 
the  most  civilized  and  humane  in  Europe.  Arson,  pillage,  mas 
sacre  are  unknown  to  them.  Why?  Italy  for  centuries  has 
been  visited,  devastated,  subject  to  the  most  unbelievable  in 
dignities  by  foreign  oppressors  and  assassins  in  soldiers'  garb. 
Of  all  foreign  soldiers  the  very  worst  had  always  been  the 
Huns,  the  Germans  and  the  Austrians,  real  bands  of  robbers, 
human  tigers,  who  took  and  take  delight  only  in  rape,  mur 
der,  and  extermination.  Even  the  tradition  of  Wallenstein, 
who  brought  to  Lombardy  desolation  and  pestilence,  is  still 
vivid  in  the  minds  of  the  peasants.  The  tyrants  and  the  popes, 
in  order  to  preserve  their  power,  surrounded  themselves  with 
mercenary  troops,  which  were  a  subject  of  general  execra 
tion.  Mercenaries  from  Switzerland  are  still  a  decorative 
souvenir  of  times  not  distant  in  the  Vatican.  The  only  foreign 
armies  which  left  no  ill  feeling  were  the  soldiers  of  the  first 
Napoleon,  who,  tyrant  as  he  was,  did  good  to  all  people  con 
quered.  The  French  army  which  fought  for  Italian  freedom 
against  Austria  was  and  is  blessed;  and  had  the  French  left 
Italy  and  the  pope  alone,  certain  lamentable  misunderstand 
ings  and  recriminations  between  the  two  generous  Latin 
countries,  would  never  have  occurred.  The  Teuton  soldiers  of 
today  are  no  different  from  the  mercenary  bandits  of  yore. 
The  proclamations  of  their  commanders  which  have  been 
published  show  it.  When  a  nation  allows  to  be  shouted  at 
peoples,  whose  territories  have  been  invaded,  the  outrageous 
words  the  Austrians  and  the  Germans  have  been  shouting  at 
the  Italian  soldiers,  men  in  this  country,  who  feel  not  ashamed 
of  coming  from  German  or  Austrian  parentage,  show  an  ab 
solute  absence  of  moral  sense,  and  deserve  pity  and  contempt ! 

In  Belgium,  Poland,  Serbia,  Roumania,  France,  in  the 
strip  of  invaded  Italy,  they  have  amply  proved  they  are  al 
ways  the  nefarious  soldiers  of  Attila.  Their  aerial  and  sub- 


20  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

marine  atrocities  have  shown  the  world  that  they  are  even 
worse  than  their  ancestors.  Nature  does  not  change:  Natur- 
am  expellas  furca  tamen  usque  recurrit.  And  yet,  in  spite  of 
all  protests  and  demands  for  reprisals,  the  order  issued  by 
the  commanders  to  the  soldiers  of  Italy  has  been  and  is :  "Vic 
tory  at  all  costs,  but  without  treachery,  and,  above  all,  with 
mercy  and  humanity  to  the  defeated."  Why?  Because  Italy 
has  been  oppressed  and  lacerated,  she  hates  even  the  idea  of 
oppressing  and  lacerating  other  people.  Because  she  knows 
by  sad  experience  what  arson,  pillage,  rape,  massacre,  are, 
she  spurns  the  very  idea  of  making  use  of  them  in  retaliating. 
Because  the  leading  minorities  have  been  and  are  the  soul  of 
honor  and  justice,  the  genuine  custodians  of  the  spirit  I  had 
reference  to,  she  went  to  war  against  the  wishes  of  the  king, 
against  the  machinations  of  the  courtiers  who  were  the 
friends  and  admirers  of  Germany,  against  the  exhortations  of 
the  corrupt  politicians  who  have  been  morally  convicted  of 
fornication  with  the  enemies  of  civilization  and  progress, 
against  the  exhortations  of  the  false  friends  from  abroad  and 
the  prophets  of  evil  from  within.  I  have  branded  Gambetta, 
the  French  politician,  as  the  worst  demagogue  of  modern 
times.  But  I  must  brand  as  particularly  dishonest  Italian 
modern  parliamentary  politics,  which  started  to  deteriorate 
after  Premier  Agostino  Depretis,  dead  long  since,  put  into 
practice  a  shameful  system  of  corrupting  influences,  which  was 
defined  "transformism,"  and  could  have  been  called  more 
properly  "prostitution."  But  the  system  of  corruption  and 
baseness  inaugurated  by  Signer  Giovanni  Giolitti — the  for 
mer  premier  and  despot  of  the  Italian  parliament — has  no 
parallel  in  the  history  of  Italian  politics.  A  quarter  of  a 
century  ago,  after  the  bankruptcy  of  the  Roman  Bank,  Signor 
Giolitti  was  compelled  to  relinquish  the  premiership,  in  dis 
grace  and  under  censure.  In  England  and  somewhere  else, 
he  would  have  been  unable  to  regain  prestige  and  power.  Big 
ger  men  were  retired  from  public  life  for  much  less.  A  man 
of  very  modest  education,  of  unsignificant  past,  of  little  elo 
quence,  but  a  master  of  intrigue,  of  unscrupulousness  and  of 
cunning,  he  became  premier  again;  and  the  very  people  who 
had  denounced  him  in  pamphlets  as  the  reincarnation  of  the 
worst  banditism  (I  refer  principally  to  Signor  Filippo  Turati, 
the  leader  of  the  "Official  Socialists"  in  the  Italian  Parlia 
ment,  the  author  of  a  publication  in  which  he  made  a  compar 
ison  between  Giolitti  and  Tiburzi,  the  bandit,  with  the  results 
favoring  Tiburzi,  and  a  man  of  unusual  education  and  of 
great  mental  attainments,  who  became,  later  on,  one  of  the 
most  willing  tools  in  the  hands  of  the  fox  of  Dronero),  were 
and  are  his  most  enthusiastic  supporters!  Everybody  knows 
the  intimate  friendship  between  Prince  Von  Bulow  and  Sig 
nor  Giolitti,  who  has  been  always  very  friendly  to  Germany 
and  Austria;  and  everybody  knows  the  relations  of  cordial 


Gigliotti- — Cor  Mundi  21 

comradeship  existing  between  the  former  premier  and  the 
Socialists  named! 

These  Socialists  have  been  playing  all  the  time  into  the 
hands  of  the  Teutonic  social-democrats;  and  have  been,  with 
the  Vatican,  very  busy  in  preaching  peace  at  any  cost.  Gen 
eral  Luigi  Cadorna  has  been  a  victim  of  circumstances.  To 
blame  him  for  the  disaster  of  last  fall  is  unjust.  But  the  ma 
jority  of  the  Italian  patriots,  who  have  always  looked  upon 
the  pope  with  suspicion,  because  the  Catholic  Hierarchy  has 
always  been  particularly  friendly  to  the  Teutons — the  Austri- 
ans  above  all — have  grown  suspicious  of  General  Cadorna 
just  because  he  is  so  extremely  religious  and  Catholic  that  he 
hears  Mass  every  day,  and  goes  often  to  confession  and  com 
munion.  Things  of  this  sort  must  be  known  in  America.  No 
serene  appreciation  of  recent  events  is  possible  without  the 
exact  knowledge  of  conditions  as  they  really  are.  It  has  been 
stated  that  the  Italian  court  was  friendly  to  Germany.  A 
few  months  before  Italy  was  compelled  to  go  to  war  on  the 
side  of  the  allies,  King  Victor  Immanuel  III,  advised  by  the 
false  prophets  of  his  cabinet  and  his  entourage,  and  following 
his  own  inclination,  sent  the  following  telegram  to  the  late 
Emperor  Franz  Joseph  of  Austria :  "Faithful  to  my  alliances, 
I  maintain  a  benevolent  neutrality."  History  is  no  fiction, 
and  facts  remain  "facts"  in  their  cold  eloquence. 

Governments  do  not  always  represent  the  country.  Italy 
— the  real  Italy,  brimming  with  the  spirit  and  traditions 
mentioned — could  not  forget  all  the  sufferings  Germany  and 
Austria  had  caused  to  her ;  she  knew  her  just  vindications  had 
not  been  fulfilled  yet;  she  heard  the  voice  arising  from  the 
graves  of  the  martyrs  and  of  the  heroes  of  the  noblest  of  all 
causes.  The  voice  of  Garibaldi  was  still  thundering  the  very 
same  words  he  delivered  in  Naples,  September  10,  1860 :  "To 
this  wonderful  page  in  our  country's  history  another  more 
glorious  still  will  be  added,  and  the  slave  shall  show  at  last 
to  his  free  brothers  a  sharpened  sword  forged  from  the  links 
of  his  fetters.  To  arms,  then,  all  of  you,  all  of  you.  And  the 
oppressors  and  the  mighty  shall  disappear  like  dust. 
We  shall  meet  again  before  long  to  march  together  to  the  re 
demption  of  our  brothers  who  are  still  slaves  of  the  stranger. 
We  shall  meet  again  before  long  to  march  to  new  triumphs." 
(Garibaldi  to  his  soldiers,  London  Times,  Sept.,  1860).  Maz- 
zini,  who  died  a  prisoner  in  his  own  country,  March  10,  1872, 
is  still  thundering  to  the  Italians  the  prophetic  words  he  de 
livered  July  25,  1848,  at  Milan:  "You  are  endowed  with  ac 
tive  and  splendid  faculties,  with  a  tradition  of  glory  which  is 
the  envy  of  all  nations.  An  immense  future  is  before  you. 
Your  eyes  are  raised  to  the  loveliest  heaven  and  around  you 
smiles  the  loveliest  land  in  Europe.  You  are  encircled  by 
the  Alps  and  the  sea,  boundaries  marked  out  by  the  fingers 
of  God  for  a  people  of  giants.  And  you  must  be  such  or  noth- 


22  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

ing.  Let  not  a  look  be  raised  to  heaven  which  is  not  that  of  a 
free  man.  Love  humanity.  You  can  only  ascertain  your  own 
mission  from  the  aim  placed  by  God  before  humanity  at  large. 
Beyond  the  Alps,  beyond  the  sea,  are  other  peoples,  now  fight 
ing,  or  preparing  to  fight,  the  holy  fight  of  independence,  of 
nationality,  of  liberty;  other  peoples  striving  by  different 
routes  to  reach  the  same  goal.  Unite  with  them  and  they  will 
unite  with  you." 

Such  are  the  ideals  of  the  men  whose  souls  have  been 
visited  by  the  spirit  of  Latin  civilization.  Such  are  the  ideals 
of  the  men  who  know  that  no  peace  can  come  to  the  world 
before  the  fight  of  independence,  of  nationality,  of  liberty  is 
won,  before  all  the  oppressors  and  mighty  have  disappeared 
like  dust.  Kings  and  emperors  have  to  go.  The  triumph  of 
democracy  alone  can  save  civilization  and  give  permanent 
peace  to  the  world.  President  Wilson  is  right  in  everything, 
except  in  his  views  about  Austria;  and  his  mistake  comes 
from  what  I  humbly  consider  a  wrong  conception  of  his 
tory.  No  matter  how  religious,  the  President  of  the  United 
States  gives  history  a  materialistic  conception,  basing  the  in 
terpretation  of  facts  almost  exclusively  on  conditions  and  mo 
tives  of  an  economic  nature.  He  belongs  to  the  utilitarian 
school ;  and  I  say  this  without  disrespect,  but  only  in  the  spirit 
of  serene  impartiality,  which  informs  these  modest  pages.  My 
impression  is  derived  from  the  conscientious  study  of  his  his 
tory  of  the  American  people.  Some  of  the  acts  of  Mr.  Wilson, 
which  make  indignant  Mr.  Roosevelt,  are  only  the  logical  con 
sequence  of  his  honest  interpretation  of  history. 

England  is  generously  paying  a  very  high  price  for  the 
blunders  of  her  mediocre  statesmen,  who  unconsciously — 
through  narrow-mindedness  and  selfishness — planted  the 
seeds  of  the  present  conflagration  in  1859.  Kossuth  is  dead. 
But  his  work  is  alive.  Edmondo  De  Amicis,  Achille  Majoc- 
chi,  and  myself  went  to  see  him  in  his  home  at  Turin,  Italy, 
a  little  time  before  he  passed  away.  Dr.  Timoteo  Riboli  came 
a  little  after  to  inquire  about  the  health  of  the  great  Hun 
garian  patriot,  who  was  a  follower  of  Mazzini  and  Garibaldi, 
and  who  became  an  Italian,  after  Hungary  had  become  an 
integral  part  of  the  dual  monarchy  headed  by  the  emperor  of 
Austria.  We  were  speaking  of  the  conception  of  the  United 
States  of  Europe.  The  grand  old  man  said:  "A  federal  re 
publican  form  of  government  for  all  Europe?  A  magnificent 
vision.  But  England  ruined  everything.  On  account  of  her 
blunder  (it  seems  to  me  he  said,  crime),  before  justice  will 
prevail  in  Europe,  rivers  of  blood  shall  flow.  Germany  and 
Austria — cursed  Austria,  the  country  of  oppression,  the  cradle 
of  infamy  and  crime — will  shock  the  world  with  their  atro 
cities." 

Kossuth  was  right.  He  had  tried  to  avoid  the  massacre 
long  since.  He  had  warned  England  more  than  half  a  century 
before  the  conflagration  set  Europe  and  the  world  afire. 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  23 

England  has  always  been  the  cradle  of  political  freedom. 
To  deny  it  would  be  ignorance  or  bad  faith.  But  freedom  has 
been  more  the  result  of  the  will  of  the  people  than  of  the  gen 
erosity  of  governments.  In  no  other  nation  is  public  opinion 
as  powerful  as  in  England.  From  the  death  of  King  Charles 
I  on  the  scaffold,  British  governments  and  rulers  have  been 
more  careful  than  they  used  to  be.  Liberal  governments  in 
England  have  been  near  the  people,  and  have  done  much  good. 
Conservative  governments,  on  the  other  hand,  have  often 
been  wrong  to  their  country  and  to  foreign  nations,  when 
they  have  not  stupidly  played  into  the  hands  of  Germany,  as 
has  been  the  case  in  years  not  very  far  from  us.  Reason 
has  been  the  dominant  trait  of  the  former;  selfishness  of  the 
latter. 

Lord  Palmerston,  liberal,  had  seen  clearly  the  future, 
and  had  encouraged  the  sentiments  which  prompted  the  re 
volts  of  1848.  He  wished  sincerely  the  freedom  of  Italy  and 
Hungary.  The  letters  of  Gladstone  from  Naples  are  an  his 
torical  document  of  the  highest  importance.  But  the  liberal 
government  of  Lord  Palmerston  was  in  1858-59  supplanted 
by  that  of  the  conservatives  and  Lord  Derby,  who  remained 
enough  in  power  to  do  immense  harm.  The  first  seed  of  the 
present  conflagration  was  sown  by  Lord  Derby  in  1859.  Other 
British  premiers  and  foreign  secretaries  unconsciously  con 
tinued  the  work,  helping  Germany  in  many  of  her  schemes, 
and  giving  her  Helgoland.  The  best  history  can  say  of  them, 
is  contained  in  a  popular  saying:  "The  snake  did  bite  the 
fakir." 

Piedmont,  under  the  leadership  of  the  immortal  Cavour, 
had  started,  with  the  help  of  France  and  Napoleon  III,  the 
war  of  national  independence,  winning  one  victory  after 
another  against  Austria.  Italian  and  French  armies  were 
pushing  the  discomfited  Austrians  into  Venice.  The  crum 
bling  of  Austria  seemed  very  near.  All  Italy  was  rejoicing. 
Kossuth  and  his  friends  were  happy,  because  they  knew  that 
an  Austrian  disaster  would  open  the  door  to  Hungarian 
emancipation.  The  oppressed  Polish  saw  the  hope  of  free 
dom  in  bloom.  The  people  of  England  were  heart  and  soul 
with  the  Sardinians.  But  the  government  of  England,  pre 
sided  by  that  sinister  friend  of  tyrants — Lord  Derby — took  the 
side  of  Austria.  Praise  and  gratitude  to  the  generous  people 
of  England,  who  atoned  so  magnificently  for  the  sin  of  the 
government  by  encouraging  Garibaldi,  by  sending  the  flower 
of  their  youth  to  fight  and  die  in  the  glorious  cause  of  Italian 
independence!  Eternal  shame  to  a  cabinet  which  helped  op 
pressors  and  made  possible  the  horrors  of  later  years!  The 
cabinet  of  St.  James  intimated  that  unless  the  French  and 
the  Italian  advance  would  come  to  a  halt,  England  should  in 
terfere  in  favor  of  Austria.  The  British  people  were  indig 
nant  and  protested.  An  indignation  mass  meeting,  presided 


24  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

by  the  Lord  Mayor,  was  held  in  the  London  Tavern,  May  20th, 
1859;  and  Louis  Kossuth  delivered  his  most  impassioned 
speech,  which  cannot  be  read  today  without  a  sense  of  deep 
emotion,  closing  his  magnificent  outburst  of  heartfelt  elo 
quence  with  the  following  imploration :  "I  love  my  fatherland 
more  than  myself;  more  than  anything  on  earth.  And  in 
spired  by  this  love,  I  ask  one  boon — only  one  boon — from 
England,  and  that  is  that  she  should  not  support  Austria. 
England  has  not  interfered  for  liberty;  let  her  not  interfere 
for  the  worst  of  despotisms — that  of  Austria." 

Ways  and  conditions  and  times  have  changed;  but  the 
cause  is  the  same.  Had  the  British  government  been  more 
enlightened  and  less  selfish,  Europe  would  have  had  peace 
from  that  time.  With  the  elimination  of  Austria,  the  vindi 
cation  of  the  principle  of  nationality  and  a  better  asset  of 
Europe,  Prussia  would  have  been  compelled  to  become  more 
modern  and  democratic,  the  Prussian-Austrian  and  the 
Franco-Prussian  wars  would  have  been  avoided,  Spain  would 
have  been  able  to  maintain  the  Republic  she  had  formed  (as 
Signer  Emilio  Castelar  stated  to  me  in  an  interview  I  had 
with  him  in  Madrid),  Russia  would  have  been  pushed  toward 
salutary  and  substantial  reforms,  the  Balkan  volcano  would 
have  been  impossible,  and — this  is  an  idea  of  my  own — Great 
Britain  would  have  granted  the  requests  of  the  Irish  patriots 
long  ago,  and  probably  she  would  have  avoided  misunder 
standings  with  the  United  States  of  America,  keeping  away 
from  her  activities  in  the  Civil  War. 

v. 

Peace?  Is  peace  a  thing  of  this  world?  As  Prussia  is 
the  chief  disturber,  it  is  advisable  to  ask  the  opinion  of  the 
holiest  man  in  Germany,  the  philosopher,  who  redeems  in  a 
way  the  whole  country — Immanuel  Kant,  of  Koenigsberg. 
His  book  "Zum  Ewigen  Frieden"  or  philosophical  essay,  as 
he  used  to  call  it,  should  be  consulted,  studied,  circulated  by 
every  lover  of  truth  and  fair  play.  It  was  in  1795.  Kant  was 
seventy-one  years  old,  and  he  became  famous  all  over  the 
world  for  his  "Critique  of  Pure  Reason."  A  firm  believer  in 
justice  and  fair  play,  he  was  deeply  disgusted  with  the  violent 
invasion  of  Silesia  by  Frederick  the  Great,  the  triple  parti 
tion  of  Poland,  the  invasion  of  France  in  1792,  and  all  the  in 
famous  aggressions,  injustices,  violations  of  every  law  of  hu 
manity  he  had  witnessed  during  his  life.  Stopping  at  one  time 
at  a  cabaret  in  Holland,  he  was  struck  by  its  strange  sign: 
there  was  painted  a  cemetery,  and  under  it  the  words  "Zum 
ewigen  Frieden,"  ("for  perpetual  peace").  He  gave  this  pes 
simistic  title  to  the  book  of  the  closing  of  his  life— he  died 
in  1804 — which  was  humanitarian  to  the  highest  degree.  Kant 
was  an  extreme  partisan  of  peace  at  any  cost.  In  this  essay 
you  hear  the  voice  of  Jesus  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount :  "And 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  25 

if  any  man  will  sue  thee  at  the  law  and  take  away  thy  coat, 
let  him  have  thy  cloak  also."  You  notice  in  it  the  seed  which 
will  develop  into  the  doctrine  of  non-resistance-  of  Tolstoy. 
But  you  learn  from  it  also  a  supreme  lesson.  He  tells  you 
that  the  only  government  to  secure  peace  is  the  republican. 
War  seemed  to  Kant  the  manifestation  of  savage  life,  be 
cause  it  represents  anarchy  between  nations,  survived  to  an 
archy  between  individuals,  who,  attracted  by  reciprocal  in 
terests,  had  agreed  to  unite  and  obey  the  same  laws.  Now, 
how  can  we  look  with  contempt  upon  the  savages,  who  live 
without  restraint,  always  ready  to  jump  on  their  neighbors 
and  massacre  them,  always  submitting  human  nature  to  the 
laws  of  mere  animality,  when  we  have  plunged  into  a  state 
of  continuous  unrest,  which  perpetuates  among  nations  the 
anarchy  which  dishonored  the  individuals?  When  war  be 
comes  an  impellent  necessity  it  must  have  its  customs:  it 
must  exclude  treachery  and  acts  of  savagery,  which  would  de 
stroy  mutual  respect  between  belligerents.  Every  war  im 
plies  that  the  enemy  of  today  may  become  the  friend  and 
the  ally  of  tomorrow  and,  naturally,  it  must  never  plan  the 
suppression  of  a  nation,  which  is  not  a  more  or  less  large  ex 
tent  of  territory,  but  an  association  of  men,  speaking  the 
same  language,  and  enjoying  inalienable  rights. 

Kant's  idea  about  republics  being  the  most  adaptable 
form  of  governments  to  maintain  peace  is  right,  because  jus 
tice  is  the  rule  of  republics,  and  where  justice  rules,  wars, 
which  are  the  offspring  of  injustice,  cannot  find  favor.  But 
they  must  be  real  republics,  something  similar  to  the  "Ideal 

/^1  *  '        J)  C    "Til      J- 

Oity    ol  .rlato. 

Tolstoy  took  much  from  Kant's  essay,  as  has  been  inti 
mated  above.  But  from  what  has  been  rapidly  condensed,  it 
is  self-evident  that  there  is  a  deep,  irreconsilible  difference 
between  the  doctrines  of  the  philosopher  of  Koenigsbrg  and 
the  nobleman  turned  peasant  of  Russia. 

The  aberrations  of  the  Russian  people  are  the  inevitable 
result  of  centuries  of  serfdom  and  sufferings.  The  system  in 
augurated  by  Alexis  Romanoff  could  not  help  but  make  the 
people  suspicious  of  their  own  government  as  much,  if  not 
more,  than  foreign  governments.  Always  slaves,  the  change 
of  government — whether  domestic  or  imported — meant  only 
change  of  master.  Among  the  enlightened,  who  felt  repul 
sion  for  autocracy,  the  idea  of  a  peaceful,  orderly  form  of  de 
mocracy  could  not  penetrate.  Lvoff  and  Miliukoff,  who  were 
the  only  ones  who  could  have  saved  Russia,  are  tramp  stars 
in  an  immense  firmament.  The  tendencies  were  revolution 
ary  Socialism,  of  the  pattern  represented  by  Lenine  and  Trot- 
zky;  anarchistic  and  nihilistic,  as  represented  by  Bakounine, 
Stepniak  and  Kropotkine;  ascetic,  as  represented  by  Tolstoy; 
and  socialistic  inaction,  as  typified  by  Maxim  Gorki.  Tolstoy, 
a  man  of  the  spirit,  felt  to  be  a  part  of  all  humanity,  and  the 


26  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

restricted  society  of  the  world  he  placed  in  the  immense  father 
hood  of  heaven.  For  Gorki  the  ideal  man  is  the  tramp.  He 
believes  it  is  a  useless  task  to  flush  a  sewer  and  a  fruitless  ex 
ertion  to  bury  the  dead.  Tolstoy  not  only  took  literally  the 
Christian  command  of  non-resistance,  but  he  carried  it  to  its 
extremest  radicalism. 

It  has  been  said  by  several  writers  that  Lenine  is  a  fol 
lower  of  Tolstoy.  Nothing  is  more  erroneous,  or,  rather,  out 
rageous.  Who  is  Lenine?  A  Russian?  A  German?  A  He 
brew?  A  Christian?  A  man  of  education  and  talent,  or  a 
fool  of  genius?  These  questions  ask  themselves  and  try  to 
answer  many  of  the  men  who  are  sincerely  against  Germany 
and  who  are  naturally  bitterly  disappointed  for  the  trend  of 
affairs  in  Russia.  Passion  is  always  blind  and  misguiding, 
and  to  make  of  Lenine  a  pupil  of  Tolstoy  is  an  aberration. 
There  is  not  the  slightest  ideal  or  spiritual  relationship  be 
tween  the  author  of  Anna  Karenina  and  the  head  of  the  Bol- 
sheviki  government.  Tolstoy  is  the  only  man  of  the  nineteenth 
and  of  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century  who  resembles 
St.  Francis  of  Assisi.  Lenine  is  the  man  in  Russia  who  has 
more  points  in  common  with  the  worst  leaders  of  the  French 
revolution.  The  Russian  revolution  was  a  wonder  of  accom 
plishment:  the  constitutional  leaders — Lvoff  and  Miliukoff — 
and  their  followers,  affected  the  most  extraordinary  change  of 
government  in  history  from  night  to  morning,  without  con 
vulsions,  without  violence,  without  bloodshed.  Had  the  So 
cialism  of  the  rabble  and  of  the  conceited  mountebanks  of 
the  type  of  Kerensky  left  them  alone,  Russia  would  have  work 
ed  already  her  own  salvation,  and  the  huge  fetid  cancer  of  Teu 
tonic  oppression,  instead  of  eating  into  her  heart,  would  have 
been  extirpated  by  the  surgical  skill  of  Brusiloff,  Korniloff, 
Kaledine  and,  perhaps,  Grand  Duke  Nicholas  Romanoff,  who 
had  given  unmistakable,  proofs,  in  the  early  part  of  the  war,  to 
be  the  ablest  of  all  generals  of  the  world's  war.  But  the  vanity 
of  Kerensky  and  the  stupid  weakness  of  his  associates  opened 
the  way  to  Lenine,  Trotzky  and  their  friends.  Trotzky  is  an 
honest  man,  misguided  but  in  good  faith ;  and  probably  by  the 
time  these  pages  are  printed  he  has  been  eliminated  from  the 
Bolsheviki  government.  But  Lenine  is  Lenine:  immense  in 
his  perversity,  ferocity  and  stubbornness.  The  program  of 
today  is  the  very  same  he  outlined  in  1905,  when  he  prophe 
sied  the  "Revolutionary  dictatorship,"  which  he  defined  as 
"the  power  not  limited  by  any  law  or  rule,  but  founded  exclu 
sively  on  violence;  a  power  which  should  not  belong  to  the 
people,  but  to  a  small  revolutionary  group."  This  reign  of 
terror  exists  only  between  Socialists.  Lenine  has  developed 
a  new  form  of  czarism.  His  proclamations  to  the  public  are 
almost  similar  to  those  of  Von  Bissing  to  the  people  of  Brus 
sels  in  the  beginning  of  the  occupation  of  Belgium.  He  de 
nies  even  the  power  of  the  "Soviet,"  which  seems  to  him  a 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  27 

prejudice  of  the  capitalistic  society.  Lenine  is  a  monstros 
ity.  While  he  advocates  universal  love,  universal  kindness 
and  universal  justice,  he  is  unjust,  wicked,  ferocious  in  the 
extreme ;  he  is  mad  with  hatred,  and  visits  his  neighbors  with 
plunder,  persecution,  revenge,  arrests,  calamity,  murder. 
While  the  immensity  of  the  Russian  madness  may  be,  in  some 
respects,  a  logical  consequence  of  the  reasoning  insanity  of 
Tolstoy,  which  has  admirers  galore  even  in  America  among 
people  of  small  brains  and  big  hearts ;  Lenine  is  by  no  means 
a  product  of  the  doctrines  advocated  by  the  Saint  of  Yasni- 
aga-Poliana. 

Tolstoy,  in  his  advocacy  of  a  universal  religion  of  love 
and  brotherhood,  based  on  a  new  revision  of  the  Gospel,  suc 
ceeded  a  Russian  peasant — Sutaieff — who  wanted  everything 
abolished — laws,  public  institutions,  private  property,  social 
and  national  barriers — so  that  love  could  rule  over  humanity 
made  free.  Sutaieff  was  an  illiterate  peasant,  and  his  aposto- 
late  was  not  noticed  outside  of  Russia.  But  Tolstoy  belonged 
to  the  highest  Russian  nobility,  was  a  man  of  learning  and 
genius,  and  his  system,  filling  his  vast  literary  production — 
novel,  drama,  essay,  translating — created  a  deep  impression 
and  produced  almost  a  moral  revolution  in  Russia  and  all  over 
the  world,  except  Germany,  the  country  of  the  superman,  who 
has  amply  proved  to  be  no  more  and  no  less  than  the  super- 
animal,  as  I  have  contended.  Whoever  has  said  that  Tolstoy 
took  much  from  J.  J.  Rousseau  was  greatly  mistaken.  Outside 
of  his  religious  and  universal  love,  he  preached  the  doctrine 
of  single  tax  of  Henry  George,  of  whom  he  translated  into 
Russian  "Progress  and  Poverty";  and  he  was  deeply  impress 
ed  by  the  "Life  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,"  by  my  late  friend 
Paul  Sabatier,  whom  I  accompanied  more  than  once  during 
his  researches  and  peregrinations  in  Umbria,  and  whose 
memory  should  be  particularly  dear  to  lovers  of  freedom  in 
general  and  to  Frenchmen  in  particular.  Paul  Sabatier,  pro 
fessor  at  the  University  of  Strasbourg,  and  an  ardent  French 
patriot,  was  subject  to  the  most  abominable  indignities  and 
persecutions  by  the  Germans. 

While  Russia  was  engaged  in  the  war  with  Japan,  Tol 
stoy  was  writing  from,  Yasniaga-Poliana  the  following  testual 
words :  "My  conscience  tells  me  that  to  kill,  in  any  form  and 
no  matter  what  the  excuse,  is  execrable,  that  war  is  a  mons 
trous  shame,  a  bloody  aberration,  and  whatever  prepares  war 
must  be  condemned."  In  the  same  communication  he  wrote: 
"So  far  as  I  am  concerned,  I  would  leave  to  the  Japanese  St. 
Petersburg,  Moscow,  Yasniaga-Poliana,  where  my  hearth  is, 
and  whatever  else  they  would  ask."  In  order  to  justify  his 
attitude,  Tolstoy  did  not  limit  himself  to  the  commandments 
of  the  gospel.  He  screened  himself  behind  the  authority  of 
Tertullian  and  Origen ;  and  amassed  quotations  from  St.  Paul, 
Epictetus,  Leo-Tsee,  Kant,  Lichtenstein,  Anatole  France,  and 
others. 


28  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

The  attitude  of  the  Russian  soul  cannot  be  understood  in 
America.  Tolstoy  was  regarded  as  a  genius  before  the  pres 
ent  war.  Now  in  many  places  things  have  changed.  People 
are  always  ready  to  abuse  and  curse  whatever  seems  in  op 
position  to  their  wishes  and  interests.  The  Hebrews  of  Amer 
ica,  especially  the  ones  of  Russian  extraction,  became,  with 
very  few  exceptions,  bitter  enemies  of  President  Roosevelt 
as  soon  as  the  Russian-Japanese  peace  was  concluded  through 
his  efforts.  They  had  been  hoping  for  a  sweeping  victory  of 
the  swarthy  Orientals  and  for  the  hopeless  crushing  of  the 
Russian  empire,  sincerely  hated  by  them  on  account  of  the 
unbearable  persecutions  against  their  kinsmen.  Many  of  the 
Russian  refugees  who  came  to  America,  found  here  sufferings, 
ridicule,  contempt.  Because  they  were  learned  and  honest, 
they  were  kept  down ;  while  the  rascals  of  their  own  national 
ity  were  prosperous,  respected,  influential.  The  first  impres 
sions  are  always  deep  and  far-reaching  in  the  hearts  not  only 
of  children  but  also  of  grown-up  people.  Instead  of  investi 
gating  the  cause  of  the  strange  phenomenon,  which  is  by  no 
means  the  fault  of  the  American  institutions,  but  of  peculiar 
circumstances  which  have  dictated  these  pages,  they  persisted 
in  living  in  the  peculiar  settlements  where  they  first  landed, 
as  an  oyster  lives  in  its  shell ;  they  allowed  the  first  resentment 
to  guide  them,  and  they  returned  to  their  native  country  un 
der  the  impression  that  we  are  living  here  under  the  worst 
capitalistic  slavery  and  that  our  government  was  free  in 
words,  but  in  fact  as  bad  as  that  of  the  czars.  Have  r  t  the 
very  same  things  been  said  even  in  Socialistic  open  air  meet 
ings,  in  the  interests  of  Mr.  London's  candidacy  for  Congress, 
of  Mr.  Hillquitt's  candidacy  for  mayor  of  New  York,  of  any 
one  who  has  been  elected  or  who  ran  for  an  officee  on  the  So 
cialistic  ticket  in  every  nook  and  corner  of  the  United  States? 
Have  not  state  and  federal  governments  allowed  the  most  ven 
omous  and  lying  agitators  to  preach  this  nefarious  and  un 
truthful  doctrine  from  the  platform  and  from  soap  boxes  on 
street  corners?  At  one  time  I  felt  compelled  to  shout  at  an 
agitator,  disturbing  the  meeting  and  creating  a  free  for  all 
fight:  "You  are  a  scoundrel  and  the  most  brazenly  liar.  If 
this  government  were  not  the  most  free  in  the  world  you 
would  have  been  sent  to  the  penitentiary  long  ago."  Trotzky 
was  one  of  the  men  who  felt  humiliated  by  the  treatment  he 
received  in  the  United  States  of  America;  and  he  went  back 
to  Russia  convinced,  honestly  convinced,  that  democracy  in  our 
country  was  a  huge  hypocrisy ;  that  every  public  office  was  sub 
servient  to  the  aristocracy  of  money  and  that  the  common  peo 
ple  were  as  unfortunate  and  as  slave  as  in  his  native  country. 
Did  Mr.  London  or  Mr.  Hilquitt,  who  owe  to  America  what 
they  are,  absolutely  all  they  are,  try  to  persuade  Trotzky  that 
he  was  mistaken  ? 

Extreme  poverty  and  extreme  wealth  make  men  equally 
deaf  to  the  voice  of  that  greatest  of  virtues — charity — which 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  29 

dictated  to  St.  Paul :  I  Cor.,  13,  one  of  the  most  divine  passages 
of  the  New  Testament.  The  treatment  which  Trotzky  received 
is  received  every  day  by  men  of  ability  and  of  conscience  of 
other  nationalities  who  are  compelled  to  live  in  those  sickly 
outgrowths  of  American  communities,  called  foreign  settle 
ments.  They  may  produce  once  in  awhile  some  good;  but 
the  little  good  is  a  drop  in  the  bucket  compared  to  the  enor 
mous  amount  of  harm  they  do:  they  are  a  great  menace  to 
the  country  and  to  the  future  of  civilization.  And  poverty 
does  not  always  compel  people  to  live  there,  no  matter  what 
the  luxuriant  fancies  of  settlement  writers  see  in  their  mor 
bid  fictions  about  the  children  of  the  slums.  My  personal  in 
vestigation  in  the  time  I  was  the  editor  of  "II  Progresso  Italo- 
Americano"  and  "L'Araldo  Italiano,"  of  New  York,  proved 
to  my  satisfaction  that  rents  were  much  higher  in  the  crowded 
tenement  districts  than  in  other  sections,  much  more  desir 
able  and  clean  and  salubrious,  of  the  city. 

People  who  come  to  the  United  States  and  stay  here  for  a 
little  while  have  a  tendency  to  judge  our  country  from  the 
bad  they  see;  they  seldom  take  the  trouble  to  see  the  good.  A 
number  of  years  ago,  on  a  transatlantic  steamer,  I  heard  some 
passengers  saying  horrible  things  of  Naples,  the  city  of  my 
birth.  They  had  never  visited  anything  more  dirty :  the  only 
beautiful  things  were  the  panorama  and  the  surroundings. 
Among  the  people  who  were  blaspheming  so,  I  noticed  two  con 
gressmen,  a  minister,  a  judge,  a  banker,  and  several  ladies.  I 
asked  of  them  if  they  were  judging  New  York  from  the  Bow 
ery,  Chicago  from  the  slaughtering  house  district,  and  Denver 
from  Market  street,  and  I  offered  to  show  to  them  Naples.  I 
did.  Charlotte  Kent,  the  famous  American  pianist,  said  to  me 
before  she  left  Naples  for  Vienna:  "Why!  Naples  is  a  dream! 
I  had  seen  the  city  before,  but  I  never  knew  it  was  so  beauti 
ful!" 

But  I  have  to  speak  of  the  foreign  settlements  later  on, 
in  the  hope  that  my  observations  will  not  fall  on  deaf  ears. 

The  United  States  of  America  have  the  keys  to  the  future 
of  humanity.  Magnum  nunc  saecula  nostra  venturi  discrimen 
habent. 


* 

A  great  seer,  in  a  moment  of  prophetic  effusion,  enunci 
ated  a  theory  which  may  prove  one  of  the  most  radiant  laws 
of  the  history  of  mankind.  Philosophy  of  history  is  the  work 
of  Providence  in  the  destinies  and  actions  of  humanity.  Haz 
ard,  fatalism,  climate,  are  only  the  limited  and  sterile  excuses 
of  limited  minds.  The  only  and  universal  God  of  mankind 
rejects  them  as  He  rejects  the  diseased  vagaries  of  the  mater 
ialistic  conception.  He  dictates  to  Aeschylus  the  observation, 
which  must  shake  the  very  heart  of  the  Kaiser  and  his  allies : 
"They  have  seen  more  than  once  the  punishment  of  the  ones 
who  undertook  unjust  things  and  went  too  willingly  into  war." 


30  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

(Agamemnon,  v.  372-376).  He,  as  Carducci  beautifully  said, 
blew  the  triumph  in  the  bugles  of  Joshua.  He  pushed  the  ships 
of  Themistocles  in  the  Aegean  Sea,  and  announced  to  trem 
bling  Rome  the  news  of  the  king's  drowning  in  Lake  Regillo. 
He  struck  with  terror  the  horse  of  Barbarossa  at  Legnano. 
Before  Him,  preceding  and  following  the  victory,  kneeled 
George  Washington,  whose  head  had  not  been  dishonored  by 
a  crown. 

Will  civilization,  born  in  the  East,  return  there  via  the 
West?  If  we  have  to  judge  from  the  signs  of  times,  civiliza 
tion  is  proceeding  almost  accordingly  to  such  a  theory ;  and  in 
its  long  march  will  stop  for  ages  in  America,  and  select  as  its 
abode  Washington,  which  will  surely  be,  in  our  times  and  in 
times  to  come,  what  Rome  used  to  be  in  a  glorious  era  gone 
by.  The  dream  of  America  becoming  the  guiding  spirit  of  a 
rejuvenated  and  better  world  is  not  new.  My  increasing  faith 
in  the  radiant  destinies  of  the  United  States,  which  have  been 
picked  by  Providence  to  become  the  Republic  of  the  World, 
started  in  the  beautiful  and  distant  days  of  my  youth,  when  I 
heard  some  of  the  conversations  of  Gen.  Garibaldi,  Gen.  Avez- 
zana,  Louis  Kossuth,  and  others  who  had  been  in  America  after 
the  fall  of  the  Roman  Republic  and  the  European  revolution  of 
1848.  The  radiant  aspirations  of  1848  had  been  stopped  by  a 
flood  of  blood,  not  killed.  Even  the  Germany  of  1848,  in  spite 
of  the  communistic  manifesto,  was  filled  with  republican  spir 
it,  and  men  imbued  with  the  warnings  of  Immanuel  Kant  were 
compelled  to  ask  the  blessing  of  hospitality  and  of  freedom  to 
this  land  of  promise.  Mazzini  had  been  the  prophet  of  Ger 
many  as  he  had  been  the  prophet  of  Italy,  Hungary,  and  of 
every  other  country  which  was  smarting  under  the  whip  of 
tyrants.  And  Karl  Marx  had  started  his  nefarious  work  of 
abusing  Mazzini,  of  discrediting  him,  of  writing  against  him 
everything  human  perfidy  could  invent.  The  Socialists  con 
tributed  to  the  ruin  of  the  movement  of  1848,  as  they  have 
tried — a  part  of  them,  to  be  just — to  ruin  the  efforts  of  the 
nations  which  are  engaged  in  the  present  struggle  for  freedom 
against  the  combined  efforts  of  the  cross  of  Luther,  the  cres 
cent  of  Mohammed  and  the  cenobitic  garb  of  Austria.  But, 
while  the  leading  Socialists  had  emigrated  to  England,  the 
foremost  republicans  of  Germany  had  fled  to  the  United  States 
of  America,  where  they  hold  also  congresses.  America  had 
as  guests  many  of  the  greatest  men  in  Europe,  above  all  Gari 
baldi,  the  knight  of  mankind,  who  came  to  the  United  States 
after  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Republic  and  the  death  by  ex 
posure  of  Anita,  his  wife  and  partner  in  perils  and  battles  for 
freedom.  But  Garibaldi  was  almost  unnoticed  and  made  a 
living  as  a  candlemaker,  in  the  little  factory  of  his  friend  An 
tonio  Meucci,  the  discoverer  of  the  telephone,  cheated  of  his 
invention.  Kossuth,  who  obtained  his  freedom  from  Turkey 
through  the  requests  of  England  and  the  United  States,  came 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  31 

here  in  1851  on  an  American  battleship  as  a  conqueror,  and 
delivered  speeches  and  addressed  Congress,  and  advocated 
with  eloquence  and  dignity  the  cause  of  freedom  in  Europe. 
He  would  have  obtained  much,  instead  of  going  to  England 
disappointed,  if  his  plans  had  not  been  disconcerted  and  com 
promised  by  the  Irish  and  the  coming  to  America  of  Thomas 
F.  Meagher,  who  had  escaped  from  Van  Dieman's  Land.  But 
it  seems  a  great  misfortune  for  oppressed  Erin  that,  while 
imploring  her  own  freedom,  she  should  always  be  a  stumbling 
block  on  the  freedom  of  others!  Her  handicap  to  Kossuth's 
plans  was  a  matter  of  accident.  But  her  attempt  to  help  the 
Germans  against  a  cause  sacred  to  the  triumph  of  democ 
racy,  and  the  last  exploits  of  Roger  Casement  have  filled  the 
people  who  believe  in  the  freedom  of  nations  with  disappoint 
ment  and  amazement.  In  the  time  Kossuth  was  preaching  to 
Americans  the  cause  of  freedom  for  the  slaves  of  Europe, 
came  out  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  by  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  and 
inflamed  the  souls.  While  he  was  not  the  exponent  of  any 
great  cause,  Franklin  Pierce  was  elected  President  of  the 
United  States.  Free  spirits  took  as  a  matter  of  course  that 
his  sympathies  were  with  them.  The  German  republicans  en 
treated  him  to  become  the  head  of  a  movement  to  convert  the 
United  States  of  America  into  a  world's  republic.  The  great 
trouble  was  that  Germans,  no  matter  how  much  inspired  by 
Kossuth,  remained  German  to  the  core,  supermen  and  selfish 
to  the  limit.  They  wanted  the  United  States  to  become  ger- 
manized.  None  of  them  rose  to  the  height  of  the  situation 
and  to  the  sublimity  of  the  ideal.  They  hated  the  universality 
of  Rome  and  of  Paris.  It  was  impossible  for  them  to  conceive 
anything  different  from  England  and  Germany:  the  first,  the 
classical  country  of  utilitarianism ;  the  second  of  metaphysics. 
And  they  made  no  mystery  of  the  fact  that  metaphysics  were 
the  gases  of  that  particular  time  which  should  asphyxiate 
England  and  empower  Germany  to  rob  her  of  her  utilitarian 
ism.  Mazzini  was  an  idealist :  God  and  the  people.  The  father 
hood  of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man.  Love  for  one's 
country,  but  reverence  for  humanity.  Germans  could  not  un 
derstand  that.  They  followed  Kossuth  because  he  was  a  Mag 
yar,  and  they  considered  Magyars  people  of  their  own  race, 
as  they  are  claiming  now  as  men  of  German  blood  the  fore 
most  men  of  the  modern  world.  Did  they  ever  stop  to  con 
sider  that  Kossuth  was  a  pupil  of  Mazzini,  as  pupils  of  Maz 
zini  were  all  men  of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
who,  even  in  England,  had  their  souls  inflamed  by  the  purest 
and  noblest  ideals  of  liberty?  Russia,  Austria,  Prussia,  and 
all  countries  ruled  by  tyrants,  were  more  afraid  of  Mazzini 
than  they  had  been  of  the  armies  of  Napoleon ;  and  they  had 
him  shadowed  and  spied  continually.  Karl  Marx  wrote  his 
own  moral  death  sentence  when  he  Galled  Mazzini  an  old  idiot. 
The  aspirations  of  the  German  republicans  in  America 
we  find  incorporated  in  a  book  entitled  "The  New  Rome," 


32  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

and  published  in  1853  by  G.  P.  Putnam  &  Co.  Authors  of  it 
were  Mr.  Theodore  Poesche,  of  Leipzic,  and  Mr.  Charles 
Goepp,  of  Pennsylvania.  Both  of  them  impressed  by  the  cy 
clone  which  had  passed  over  Europe  in  1848;  and  both  Ger 
man  to  the  core,  they  set  their  hopes  on  the  United  States  of 
America,  an  immense  country,  which  nature  itself  had  des 
tined  to  be  the  most  powerful  nation  on  earth,  provided  it 
knew  enough  to  take  advantages  of  the  extraordinary  re 
sources  of  its  climate,  products  and  geographical  position. 
The  London  Times,  referring  with  bitterness  to  the  future  na 
ture  and  Providence  had  assigned  to  the  United  States,  ex 
claimed  :  "A  continent  and  two  oceans  are  in  the  hands  of  that 
people."  Washington,  being  almost  in  the  center  of  the  world, 
should  become  the  New  Rome,  not  in  inspiration  for  good,  but 
in  a  decidedly  imperialistic  way.  The  entire  book,  full  of 
quotations  and  crammed  with  Teutonic  vagaries,  seems  to  the 
superficial  observer  a  glorification  of  the  United  States  of 
America,  an  unselfish  attempt  to  induce  the  United  States  to 
assume  the  supremacy  of  the  world,  an  effort  to  open  the 
eyes  of  Washington,  so  that  she  would  grasp  her  opportunity 
and  become  the  "New  Rome."  But  to  the  eye  of  the  scholar, 
the  historian  and  the  philosopher  accustomed  to  plunge  into 
the  heart  of  things  and  analyze  hidden  human  motives,  it  was 
only  an  effort  to  teutonize  America,  to  sick  her  on  England,  in 
order  to  take  away  from  the  British  Empire  trade,  colonies, 
wealth,  influence,  world  supremacy.  It  is  the  old  refrain  of 
German  jealousy  and  dull  hatred,  embittered  and  perhaps  pol 
ished  by  a  streak  of  Napoleonic  rage  instilled  into  the  hearts 
of  Teutonic  republicans  by  Heinrich  Heine.  Wellington  and 
Blucher  had  parted  ways.  Germans  dreamed  of  an  alliance 
between  Blucher  and  an  American  Napoleon  (Franklin 
Pierce)  to  destroy  Wellington.  People  familiar  with  Ameri 
can  history  cannot  understand  how  gentle  Pierce,  one  of  the 
most  inconspicuous  men  in  that  age  of  giants,  could,  even  in  a 
sickly  dream,,  become  the  archangel  of  destruction  for  Eng 
land.  But  the  German  mind  was  unconsciously  but  surely 
beginning  to  sow  the  seed  of  the  conquest  of  a  Teutonic  world. 
Wilhelm  II  has  been  the  logical  heir  and  fulfiller  of  that  mad 
Apocalypse  forced  into  bankruptcy.  And  America  has  been 
and  is  yet  the  battling  ground  of  those  ideas. 

Let  me  quote  from  page  87  of  the  book  I  have  unburied, 
in  order  to  give  new  matter  for  food  to  American  minds  who, 
emotional  in  their  sparks  of  genius,  produce  doctrines  like 
those  expressed  by  Theodore  Roosevelt  in  the  famous  editorial 
published  in  the  Cosmopolitan  of  February,  1918.  Read  now 
carefully  what  Poesche  and  Goepp  have  to  say : 

"The  stupendous  greatness  of  England  is  factitious,  and 
will  only  become  natural  when  that  empire  shall  have  found  its 
real  centre.  The  centre  is 'in  the  United  States.  The  anglican 
empire  is  essentially  oceanic.  Its  dominions  extend  along  the 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  33 

coasts  of  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific,  the  lesser  and  the  great 
er  ocean.  America,  lying  in  the  midst  of  the  ocean,  is  there 
fore  its  natural  point  of  gravitation.  The  realization  of  an 
idea  higher  than  could  be  developed  in  the  mother  island,  that 
of  the  republican  democracy,  required  a  temporary  segrega 
tion  of  the  centre;  that  task  accomplished,  it  is  time  to  call  for 
a  reunion;  but  the  former  adjunct  being  now  no  longer  merely 
the  geographic  centre,  but  the  political  and  social  focus,  must 
take  the  lead.  ENGLAND,  WITH  HER  COLONIES,  MUST 
BE  ANNEXED  TO  THE  AMERICAN  UNION.'' 

If  you  are  acquainted  with  the  secret  history  of  the  Prus 
sian  court,  which  is  very  different  from  the  historical  ro 
mances  of  Mulbach,  and  if  you  have  fully  understood  the  sin 
ister  mission  of  Stieber,  a  spontaneous  suspicion  glides  into 
your  minds:  "Did  not  Friedrich  Wilhelm  look  with  complac 
ency  upon  the  efforts  of  the  German  republicans  in  America?" 

On  the  29th  of  January,  1852,  a  congress  of  Germans  at 
Philadelphia  formed  the  "American  Revolutionary  League 
for  Europe,"  designed,  we  are  informed,  to  assist  in  the  veri 
table  liberation  of  the  European  nations.  At  this  congress  the 
following  resolution  was  presented:  "That  in  the  opinion  of 
the  present  congress,  every  people,  upon  throwing  off  the 
yoke  of  its  tyrants,  ought  to  demand  admission  into  the 
league  of  states  already  free,  that  is,  into  the  American  Union ; 
so  that  these  states  may  become  the  nucleus  of  political  organ 
ization  of  the  human  family  and  the  starting  point  in  the 
World's  Republic."  It  received  the  enthusiastic  support  of  a 
respectable  minority ;  but  the  greater  number,  though  profess 
ing  entire  confidence  with  its  views,  considered  its  adoption 
injudicious  under  existing  circumstances.  On  September  18 
of  the  same  year  a  second  congress  of  the  league  was  held  at 
Wheeling,  W.  Va.,  and  the  very  same  resolution  was  submit 
ted  again  and  passed  unanimously.  It  was,  we  are  told,  the 
official  expression  of  the  political  views  of  the  German  emigra 
tion  ;  but  we  know  positively,  too,  that  it  had  the  hearty  sup 
port  of  people  who  were  in  cordial  relations  with  the  govern 
ment  of  Prussia.  The  reader  must  first  consider  that  the  Ger 
mans — and  the  Germans  alone —  were  speaking  in  the  name 
of  every  oppressed  people,  whose  representatives  they  had 
been  very  solicitous  to  keep  away  from  their  congresses ;  sec 
ond,  that  their  agitations  were  not  seen  with  disfavor  in 
Prussia  and  other  German  states.  The  German  courts, 
which  were  the  legal  weapons  of  the  German  govern 
ments,  did  not  consider  the  German  propaganda  in  Ameri 
ca  as  seditious,  because  they  acquitted  the  Germans  at  home 
who  had  been  circulating  its  doctrines  in  Berlin  and  else 
where.  And  we  learn  this  from  the  very  authors  of  the  book. 
Open  at  page  101,  and  read  for  yourself :  "Few,  indeed,  would 
hesitate  to  exchange  the  present  German  constitution  for  the 
American,  if  the  choice  were  offered.  The  idea  of  annexation 


34  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

has  already  been  discussed  in  the  German  papers,  and  was  re 
ceived  with  warm  approbation.  It  has  been  a  matter  of  judi 
cial  investigation  in  the  criminal  courts  of  that  country,  who 
acquitted  the  authors  of  all  seditious  intentions  on  the  ground, 
though  their  projects  involved  the  subversion  of  the  German 
governments,  it  did  not  appear  that  such  subversion  was  nec 
essarily  a  forcible  one." 

It  seems  to  foresee  the  work  of  Stieber  in  Austria  and 
France.  A  few  more  lines:  "We  are  not  in  want  of  natural 
allies.  The  German  press  of  this  country  now  numbers  180 
newspapers;  unequalled  in  any  other  language  except  the  Eng 
lish.  It  is  not  yet  on  a  level  with  the  present  state  of  the 
German  mind,  but  the  reactive  influence  of  that  mind  must 
soon  be  felt  and  seen." 

From  such  a  movement  sprung  Karl  Schurz.  Such  a 
movement  was  going  to  develop  in  due  course  of  time  the  Ger 
man-American  Alliance.  The  lineal  descendents  of  that  move 
ment  have  been  Hermann  Ridder,  Hugo  Muensterberg  and  the 
editor  of  that  paper  truly  inspired  by  the  spirit  of  Stieber, 
'The  Fatherland." 

Immanuel  Kant?  An  excuse.  Mazzini?  A  reproach. 
Washington?  A  weapon  against  England.  Jefferson?  Well, 
they  could  use  to  some  advantage  the  theory:  "That  govern 
ment  governs  best  which  governs  least." 

Poesche  always  professed  to  be  a  German.  Goepp  said  he 
was  an  American.  But  both  men  met  at  the  German  Congress 
at  Philadelphia;  they  stood  side  by  side.  Goepp  had  publish 
ed  a  pamphlet  during  the  Kossuth  furor,  entitled  "E  Pluribus 
Unum,"  and  that  pamphlet  is  incorporated  in  the  book,  "The 
New  Rome."  Neither  malice  nor  sympathy  guides  the  humble 
writer  of  this  criticism.  Even  if  the  authors  of  "The  New 
Rome"  were  moved  by  the  best  of  motives,  they  misunderstood 
the  mission  of  the  United  States.  More  than  moral  greatness, 
they  were  advocating  material  prosperity.  Rather,  material 
prosperity  alone.  Accumulation  of  wealth  does  not  create  the 
power  of  nations. 

I  have  been — just  because  the  political  philosophy  of 
Mazzini  has  attracted  me  from  childhood — a  firm  believer  in 
the  mission  of  the  United  States  in  the  history  of  the  world ; 
a  mission  of  love  and  democracy  and  not  of  imperialism  and 
greed.  President  Wilson,  in  his  message  which  was  received 
ii\  Europe  and  America  as  the  gospel  of  democracy,  stated  in 
an  unmistakable,  inspiring  way,  the  real  aims  of  our  country. 
The  trouble  of  the  European  nations,  the  hatred  between  Ger 
many  and  England,  is  much  deeper  than  that  from  1740  to 
1914,  illustrated  by  historians  guided  only  by  diplomatic  doc 
uments.  Diplomacy  is  perfidy,  lie,  deception,  intrigue,  insid- 
iousness.  It  has  nothing  to  do  with  statesmanship  and  will  re 
main  the  curse  of  nations  till  it  is  shorn  of  its  evils  and  made 
honest  and  open.  In  writing  history,  diplomatic  documents 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  35 

should  be  properly  sifted  and  interpreted  or  history  will  be 
one-sided  and  misleading.  England,  at  its  worst,  was  always 
liberal.  Germany,  at  the  best,  was  arbitrary,  militaristic,  des 
potic.  German  liberals,  then,  if  sincere,  should  have  been 
more  inclined  toward  England,  which  had  and  has  such  a 
wealth  of  German  blood,  traditions,  ties,  from  the  ruling  dyn 
asty  to  many  of  the  leading  British  families.  No.  From  1740 
to  1914  they  had  few  agreements,  and  many  disagreements, 
which  increased  after  1815.  Bismarck,  the  evil  spirit,  helped 
to  prepare  the  present  conditions:  he  avoided  war,  which 
seemed  inevitable,  a  few  times,  only  because  he  was  afraid 
Germany  was  not  ready  yet  to  crush  the  world.  Greed  was 
the  motive  power  of  the  actions  of  the  two  nations.  The 
country  of  metaphysics  wanted  to  grab  the  wealth  of  the 
country  of  utilitarianism.  The  country  of  utilitarianism, 
when  it  discovered  that  the  country  of  metaphysics  was  slow 
ly  but  surely  depriving  her  of  her  commerce  and  wealth,  took 
notice.  The  famous  Tory  article  of  the  Saturday  Review 
(Sept.  11,  1897) — Germania  est  delenda — expressed  the  view 
that  "were  Germany  destroyed  tomorrow  there  is  not  an  Eng 
lishman  who  would  not  be  richer."  Naturally  the  Germans 
were  indignant,  and  became  more  pugnacious  than  formerly. 
The  "repetition  of  Jameson's  raid  by  the  English  government 
dictated  by  banking  and  mining  speculators"  filled  with  deep 
disgust  and  horror  the  very  few  Germans  who  had  admired 
the  free  institutions  of  England,  and  above  all  Theodore 
Mommsen.  Long  before  that,  Sir  Charles  Dilke,  the  greatest 
statesman  of  modern  England,  sacrificed  to  British  prudery 
and  hypocrisy,  had  seen  into  the  future.  He  wanted  Belgium 
strongly  prepared  and  fortified,  because  he  felt  that  in  the 
case  of  another  war,  the  German  general  staff  would  invade 
France  through  it.  Be  it  as  it  may,  I  am  not  relating  history. 
I  am  only  inferring  the  lesson  of  history.  Greed  has  been  the 
motive  of  Germany.  Greed  has  inspired  England.  To  the 
ones — blind,  selfish,  utilitarian — who  believe  that  trade,  traffic, 
commerce,  are  the  supreme  goal  of  nations,  the  secret  of  pow 
er,  glory  and  lasting  influence  of  peoples,  it  is  difficult  to  con 
vey  the  solemn  lesson  of  history.  The  worst  form  of  blindness 
is  that  which  afflicts  those  who  have  eyes  and  refuse  to  see. 
Moloch  is  the  most  wretched  of  gods.  Greed  ruined  the  Phoe 
nicians  ;  brought  the  downfall  of  Babylon,  Egypt,  Israel,  Per 
sia,  and  Greece;  caused  the  decadence  and  the  ruin  of  the 
Roman  empire;  destroyed  the  power  of  Spain,  ruined  the 
Netherlands,  brought  abjection  to  the  Republic  of  Venice;  is 
the  cause  of  the  troubles  of  utilitarian  England ;  will  fatally 
bring  Germany  into  dust,  sooner  or  later,  before  this  war  ends 
or  after. 

Greed  to  nations  is  like  tuberculosis  to  individuals:  if 
not  cured,  will  carry  them  fatally  to  the  grave.  May  greed — 
which  has  made  blind,  deaf  and  dumb  to  the  voice  of  human- 


36  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

ity  many  of  the  leading  men  of  the  United  States — depart 
from  our  midst.  May  justice  inspire  all  the  actions  of  men  in 
public  life;  and  convince  them  that  many  national  calamities 
are  the  result  of  the  very  actions  which  have  been  shown  in 
the  preceding  pages,  which  seem  to  lack  system  only  apparent 
ly,  but  which  are  connected  strongly  by  links  which  will  not 
be  seen  by  the  ones  who  have  eyes  and  yet  refuse  to  see.  We 
find  in  one  of  the  greatest  masterpieces  of  the  literature  of 
mankind — Job:  iv,  8 — the  warning:  "Even  as  I  have  seen, 
they  that  plow  iniquity  and  sow  wickedness,  reap  the  same." 

Socrates  said  to  his  accusers,  as  we  are  informed  by  Plato 
(Apology) :  "He  who  in  earnest  contends  for  justice,  if  he 
will  be  safe  for  but  a  short  time,  should  live  privately  and  take 
no  part  in  public  affairs."  It  is,  of  course,  the  kind  of  public 
life  which  has  been  displayed  so  far.  But  when  public  life 
shall  be  inspired  by  the  principles  of  honor  and  justice,  on 
which  our  country  must  stand,  things  will  be  fundamentally 
different. 

We  need  an  intense  spirit  of  nationalism  combined  with 
an  intense  spirit  of  justice.  Deeds  and  facts,  not  words  and 
phrases.  Liberty  in  tranquillity,  not  peace  resting  on  a  vol 
cano  of  rapacity  of  large  interests  and  of  hatred  and  greed  of 
proletarians.  No  "Act  of  Enclosure"  of  Commons,  and  no 
communistic  manifesto. 

VII. 

Did  modern  history  start  with  the  discovery  of  America 
or  with  the  Reformation  ?  Many  years  ago,  in  a  pamphlet  en 
tirely  and  perhaps  justly  forgotten,  I  pointed  out  that  the 
portals  of  modern  history  were  opened  by  Martin  Luther,  who 
had  redeemed  human  reason  from  the  blind  tyranny  of  Cath 
olic  dogma.  I  was  wrong,  and  more  wrong  have  been  people 
who  have  ransacked  my  booklet  and  offered  my  vagaries  as 
discoveries  of  their  geniuses  in  establishing  the  laws  of  his 
tory.  The  human  mind  had  been  freed  before  Luther,  who 
had  the  extraordinary  merit  of  founding  the  German  litera 
ture  so  rich  in  material  and  so  poor  in  quality,  had  preached 
the  Reformation,  which  was  as  far  from  the  spirit  of  real 
Christianity  as  the  present  European  war  is  from  the  views 
expressed  by  Immanuel  Kant  in  the  essay  mentioned  in  an 
other  chapter.  In  Italy,  Bernardino  Telesio,  from  Cosenza, 
Calabria,  had  disentangled  philosophy  of  nature  from  the  ter 
rible  coils  of  that  boa  constrictor  of  reason  which  was  the 
syllogism  of  scholasticism.  Christianity  of  the  Reformation 
was  no  more  Christianity  than  that  of  Rome  or  that  of  Cal 
vin  who,  more  contemptible  than  Torquemada  or  Cardinal 
Ximenez,  had  Dr.  Servetus  burned  for  heresy  in  a  public 
square  of  Geneva,  Oct.  27,  1553. 

To  be  more  correct,  I  would  like  to  state  that  both  the  dis 
covery  of  America  and  the  proclamation  of  religious  freedom, 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  37 

were  the  sounding  knell  of  modern  history,  which  gave  place 
to  a  NEW  ERA  as  soon  as  the  United  States,  coming  out  from 
their  Chinese  wall  of  the  Monroe  doctrine,  entered  the  world's 
war,  not  for  conquest  or  self-aggrandizement,  but  in  order  to 
save  civilization  and  democracy.  I  have  my  reasons  to  believe 
that,  in  spite  of  the  magnificent  words  of  President  Wilson, 
America  would  have  remained  out  of  the  conflict  had  not  Ger 
man  intrigue,  arrogance,  greed,  and  frightfulness  forced  the 
government  of  Washington  into  the  affray.  If  the  only  motives 
had  been  humanitarian,  the  deliberations  of  the  American 
Government  would  have  been  taken  after  the  invasion  of 
Belgium  and  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania.  More  than  the 
interests  of  democracy  and  of  humanity,  the  instincts  of 
self-preservation,  prevailed  in  Washington.  A  victorious 
Germany  would  have  meant  an  oppressed  America.  Many 
of  the  American  politicians  and  statesmen,  who  have  been 
relentless  in  their  criticism  of  President  Wilson,  had  spent 
years  in  preparing  the  huge  banquet  Germany  longed  to  en 
joy.  In  the  last  presidential  campaign,  the  Republicans, 
while  displaying  American  flags  and  appealing  to  efficiency 
and  American  rights,  had,  as  their  chief  exponents,  the 
German  American  Alliance,  and  employed  as  their  chief  pub 
licity  agents  the  men  who  had  served  faithfully  Dumba, 
Bernstorff,  and  Bolo  Pasha.  They  did  it  perhaps  innocent 
ly,  but  they  drove  from  Mr.  Hughes  thousands  who  had 
intended  to  support  him,  especially  in  Ohio,  and  on  the 
Pacific  Coast,  where  people  are  less  shallow  and  more  re 
flexive.  I  apologize  to  the  readers  and  to  the  men  in  politics 
for  this  observation,  but  the  lessons  of  history  should  never 
be  ignored  by  people  who  carry  in  their  hands  the  destinies 
of  mankind. 

The  discovery  of  America  opened  a  new  field  to  the  op 
pressed  of  the  world.  Christopher  Columbus,  who  was  seek 
ing  glory  and  wealth  in  a  scientific  discovery  for  commercial 
purposes,  instead  of  reaching  India,  navigating  westward, 
found  an  immense  continent  unknown  before,  and  rich  be 
yond  the  fondest  hopes.  The  miserable  Teutonic  historical 
junk  dealers,  who  tried  to  belittle  Columbus  with  the  tales 
of  Norsemen  navigators,  found  willing  and  busy  henchmen 
in  American  educators,  who  took  and  take  delight  in  deco 
rating  school  rooms  with  German  rags.  But  the  oppressed 
of  the  world  had  in  Columbus  their  first  liberator,  when  he 
first  found  the  way  to  this  great  continent.  France,  Spain 
England,  the  Netherlands,  exploited  it.  Adventurers,  pirates, 
and  convicts,  before  Germans  and  Sein  Feiners  started  to 
come,  settled  it,  and  disgraced  it.  But  Columbus  had,  against 
his  own  expectations,  become  the  greatest  benefactor  of  man 
kind,  because,  if  many  evils  were  introduced  into  the  new 


38  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

continent,  inhabited  by  the  Red  Skins,  numberless  blessings 
found  their  way  into  it,  too. 

Nobody  can  read -the  history  of  New  England  without 
deep  emotion.  From  England — unjustly  abused  by  indi 
viduals  and  nations,  which  nicknamed  her  "Perfidious  Al 
bion" — came  the  two  institutions,  which  slowly  but  persist 
ently  brought  the  American  colonies  into  Independence  Hall 
in  Philadelphia.  As  rightly  says  Dr.  Edward  Elliott,  the 
House  of  Burgesses  became  the  bulwark  of  popular  lib 
erties,  and  through  it  the  people  demanded  and  secured  a 
large  share  in  the  government  of  the  colony.  The  religious 
motive  was  primarily  responsible  for  the  migration  to  the 
New  World  of  the  Puritan  colonists  of  New  England.  These 
Puritans,  who  very  soon  became  Congregationalists,  had  a 
system  of  Church  government  which  contained  the  seeds  of 
democracy.  The  Pilgrims  who  first  arrived  to  the  now  cel 
ebrated  Plymouth  Rock  were  misguided  Christians,  too;  nar 
row  and  intolerant,  as  the  Independents  of  England  and  the 
Calvinists  of  Switzerland,  and  very  jealous  of  their  faith 
and  their  freedom,  but  very  ready  to  commit  murder  to  ad 
vance  their  cause;  they  persecuted,  tortured,  jailed,  burned 
for  witchcraft  innocent  people  who  had  other  beliefs 
and  observed  other  religious  practices.  It  is  true  that  the 
Quakers,  under  the  guidance  of  William  Penn,  came  to  Amer 
ica  and,  in  spite  of  peculiarities  which  amused  and  shocked 
people,  restored  the  simplicity  and  brotherly  love  of  Chris 
tianity,  which  has  been  revived  in  the  purity  and  in  the  spirit 
of  the  first  centuries  by  the  so-called  Plymouth  brethren. 

America,  the  promised  land  of  the  oppressed  and  the 
downtrodden,  had  to  shake  her  yoke  from  English  sovereign 
ty.  The  brilliant  selfishness  of  Benjamin  Franklin,  the  dec 
lamatory  but  heartfelt  patriotism  of  Patrick  Henry,  the  en- 
cyclopedism  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  the  inspiring  faith  and 
magnificent  heroism  of  George  Washington,  the  bravery  of 
the  immortal  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
preceded  the  French  Revolution ;  and,  proclaiming  the  free 
dom  of  the  thirteen  original  states,  eliminated  forever  the 
British  master,  established  a  permanent  government  of  the 
people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people;  and  defined  very 
clearly  the  rights  and  the  duties  of  free  men.  The  French 
Revolution  seemed  to  Mazzini  the  end  of  an  era,  and  not  the 
beginning  of  one.  The  most  violent  convulsions,  arson,  pil 
lage,  murder,  blind  and  frightful  vengeance:  the  red  flag, 
the  guillotine,  and  the  directorate.  Louis  XVI  ascends  the 
scaffold ;  and  when  the  tigers,  who  thought  the  rights  of  men 
could  only  prosper  in  carnage  and  blood,  did  not  find  any 
more  enemies  to  slay,  they  started  to  slay  each  other.  The 
heads  of  Danton,  Desmoulins,  Robespierre  rolled  into  the 
ghastly  basket.  And  Napoleon  arose  in  the  carnage:  from 
the  aristocratic  monarchy,  the  empire  of  the  upstarts;  the 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  39 

grandson  of  "le  roy  soleil"  had  been  executed  to  make  room 
for  the  little  corporal!  The  French  Revolution  had  been  an 
appalling  cataclysm:  ruins  of  vast  proportions  were  natur 
ally  strewed  in  its  path.  It  could  not  last.  Mazzini  was 
right.  The  French  Revolution  closed  an  era.  It  was  a  period 
in  one  of  the  most  important  paragraphs  in  history. 

But  the  American  Revolution  was  the  beginning  of  a 
new  era,  the  announcement  of  a  radiant  hope  to  mankind. 
Napoleon  sealed  the  past.  George  Washington  unfolded  the 
future.  The  men  of  1848  in  Europe  took  inspiration  from 
the  United  States  of  America.  In  France,  where  the  people 
had  been  kept  awake  with  "Granny"  of  Beranger,  they  were 
blessed  with  the  coup  d'etat  of  "Napoleon  le  petit",  as  Victor 
Hugo  called  the  third  Bonaparte.  In  America  were  brew 
ing  the  events  which  twelve  years  later  brought  Abraham 
Lincoln  to  the  presidency,  precipitated  the  civil  war,  and 
abolished  slavery.  France  had  shocked  the  world  with  the 
horrors  of  the  revolution;  the  United  States  had  filled  the 
peoples  of  the  earth  with  the  blessings  of  their  achievements : 
anarchy  there,  order  here.  The  "Declaration  of  Independ 
ence"  stands  as  the  proclamation  of  the  new  generations: 
the  declaration  of  men's  rights  was  the  last  will  and  testa 
ment  of  a  disappearing  world. 

No  rights  unless  men  are  ready  to  perform  duties  faith 
fully.  The  new  spirit  which  pervaded  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  the  Revolution,  the  formation  of  the  United 
States  of  America,  was  the  new  gospel  of  redemption  to  the 
people,  who  had  freed  themselves  from  British  yoke,  and  the 
oppressed  of  the  world.  All  the  revolutions  of  the  past — big 
and  small — had  been  limited  in  scope  and  bloody  in  method; 
instead  of  being  the  achievement  of  a  lofty  goal,  they  had 
been  the  bursting  of  desperation  and  the  outburst  of  revenge, 
the  breaking  loose  of  the  uncontrolled  and  uncontrollable 
savagery  of  the  rabble.  Spartacus,  Tell,  Rienzi,  Masaniello, 
Minin,  become  insignificant  shadows  When  George  Wash 
ington  appears.  And  after  Washington,  Garibaldi. 

But  this  country,  intended  to  be  the  abode  and  the  bless 
ing  of  the  oppressed,  naturally  made  huge  blunders.  The 
evil  influences  of  adventurers,  the  atavic  tendencies  of  the 
criminals  imported  here,  and  the  selfishness  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons,  intelligent,  alert,  wise,  but  extremely  utilitarian — as 
typified  by  Franklin — mixed  with  the  impulsive,  inordinate, 
proud,  and  misguided  generous  instincts  of  races  other  than 
English,  were  the  causes  of  calamities,  which  culminated  in 
internal  strife  in  that  Pharisaical  autonomy  of  extreme 
selfishness  called  "the  Monroe  doctrine"  and  in  the  Civil 
War.  But  Abraham  Lincoln,  one  of  the  most  benevolent  and 
resplendent  suns  in  the  history  of  mankind,  saved  the  country 
and  gave  the  greatest  of  all  testimonials  that  the  United 
States  had  been  destined  by  Providence  to  be  the  bay  of 


40  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

safety  for  the  oppressed  and  down-trodden  in  the  storms  of 
savagery  and  fury  of  intolerance,  militarism,  and  tyrannies. 

Nevertheless,  after  the  Civil  War  other  evils  came:  seri 
ous  evils,  which  might  cause  the  ruin  of  our  institutions  and 
our  country.  The  building  of  enormous  fortunes  has  made 
of  a  very  few  individuals  the  uncrowned  kings  and  emperors 
of  one  hundred  millions  of  people,  who  are  the  enemies  and 
the  great  menace  of  our  immense  commonwealth:  like  Dam 
ocles'  sword,  they  are  continually  suspended  over  our  heads, 
ready  to  fall  at  any  moment.  They  have  corrupted  every 
branch  of  our  government;  and,  having  in  their  own  pocket- 
books  the  destinies  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men,  they 
can  trouble  for  their  own  selfish  ends  the  most  vital  interests 
of  a  whole  nation.  Oil  and  coal  fields,  railroads,  steamship 
lines,  industries,  farm  products,  banks,  everything,  have  been 
concentrated  in  their  own  hands.  The  government,  which 
they  believe  their  own  creation,  is  at  times  powerless  against 
them;  they  give  to  the  poor  one  and  extort  four;  compelled 
by  the  unions  to  pay  better  wages,  they  get  everything  back 
with  very  heavy  interest,  sending  prices  sky-high,  profiteer 
ing,  robbing  openly,  unscrupulously,  brazenly,  in  spite  of 
the  law;  and,  often,  with  the  connivance  of  the  law.  In 
all  times  and  in  all  nations,  the  worst  enemies  of  the  people 
— as  I  had  occasion  to  demonstrate  a  number  of  years  ago, 
while  running  for  a  legislative  office — are  the  very  rich  and 
the  very  poor,  the  men  who  have  become  conscienceless 
through  great  accumulation  of  wealth,  and  who  believe  every 
thing  is  for  sale;  and  the  very  poor,  who  have  lost  every 
sense  of  pride  and  honor,  and,  like  brutes,  know  no  other 
moral  than  the  satisfaction  of  the  stomach  and  the  sexual 
instinct.  Both  extremes  are  very  dangerous  to  the  security 
of  the  state,  and  they  should  be  eliminated;  but.  before  they 
are  eliminated,  the  very  rich  and  the  very  poor  should  be  de 
prived  of  the  rights  of  citizenship.  Anti-trust  laws  are  a 
ridiculous  joke,  when  the  ones  who  enforce  them  are  the  ser 
vants  of  the  kings  of  wealth. 

But,  as  this  great  country  of  ours  produced  Washing 
ton,  who  smashed  the  British  yoke,  and  Lincoln,  who  abol 
ished  slavery,  she  will  certainly,  sooner  or  later,  give  us  the 
new  liberator,  who  surely  shall  accomplish  the  wonderful 
task  of  making  the  United  States  the  ideal  government  of 
the  world,  the  new  Eden.  God  bless  President  Wilson,  if  he 
is  the  one! 

Bad  is  Germany.  Horrible  is  the  condition  which  would 
be  our  lot  were  the  central  empires  of  Europe  victorious. 
But  our  lot  would  not  be  very  much  better  if  the  ascendancy 
of  the  enormously  rich  has  to  go  on  at  the  same  pace  as  be 
fore.  The  war  will  make  them  much  richer,  far  more  power 
ful;  and,  if  we  will  not  be  free  from  them  after  we  have 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  41 

humiliated  and  crushed  the  arrogance  of  Germany,  we  will 
only  have  avoided  Scillae  to  go  into  Caribdi. 

Over  sixty  years  ago  America  refused  to  concede  Canada 
reciprocity,  and  Mr.  McKenzie,  in  the  Dominion  Parliament, 
amid  the  deafening  applause  of  his  colleagues  and  of  the  pub 
lic  assembled  in  the  galleries,  declared  that  the  United  States 
acted  so  because  they  wanted  to  annex  British  North  Amer 
ica.  A  few  years  ago,  President  Taft  made  an  effort  to  get 
reciprocity  with  Canada,  and  the  Conservatives,  who  were 
fighting  Canada's  greatest  statesman — Wilfred  Laurier — de 
clared  that  America  wanted  reciprocity  as  the  first  step  to 
annex  the  Dominion ;  and  they  won  on  that  issue  .  The  truth 
is  that  the  detentors  of  wealth  of  over  sixty  years  ago  did 
not  want  reciprocity,  because  it  was  not  to  their  interests, 
and  for  the  very  same  reason  the  detentors  of  wealth  in  our 
time  have  repeated  the  unconfessable  scheme.  The  first 
time  the  American  Government  was  democratic;  the  sec 
ond  was  democratic  the  government  of  Canada. 

We  are  and  must  be  very  patriotic.  But  real  patriotism 
must  convince  us  that  our  country  is  not  only  our  territory, 
our  history,  and  our  flag;  but  that  she  is,  above  all,  human 
flesh  and  human  blood;  and  that  the  happiness  of  the  people 
must  be  placed  above  the  power  of  the  state.  Justice  is 
greater  than  glory,  and  righteousness  is  immensely  better 
than  success. 

VIII. 

Of  late,  all  belligerents  have  tried  to  enlist  the  sympathy 
of  the  United  States,  publishing  books,  not  always  impartial, 
buying  the  press,  sending  lecturers  and  missionaries  all  over 
the  country.  The  Germans,  who  have  spent  more  money  than 
anybody  else,  gained  the  favor  of  big  newspapers  and  maga 
zines  all  over  the  country,  and  poisoned  the  minds  of  unsus 
pecting  people  through  persistent  propaganda,  headed  by  insti 
tutions  of  learning  and  university  professors,  engaged  in  the 
most  abominable  panderage  which  dishonor  men.  Hugo  Mun- 
sterberg,  professor  of  Psychology  in  Harvard  University,  was 
the  head  and  front  of  pro-German  propaganda  among  intel 
lectuals.  Suspected,  denounced,  practically  caught  in  the 
nefarious  work,  he  offered  his  resignation  to  the  trustees 
of  the  institution.  But  dignified  Harvard,  where  the  spirit 
of  the  supreme  pacifist  Channing  still  gently  floats,  and 
where  the  teachings  of  Professor  Harnack  of  Berlin  are  con 
sidered  as  the  gospel  of  the  generations  to  come,  reaffirmed 
its  deep  confidence  in  Munsterberg,  and  asked  of  him  to  re 
main  in  his  chair.  That  strange  individual,  George  Sinister 
Viereck,  who  in  that  ultra  German  Fatherland  abused  every 
thing  American,  and  after  war  was  declared  went  to  the  Roy- 
crofters  in  East  Aurora  to  make  profession  of  American 
ism,  and  to  insult  with  his  venomous  hypocrisy  the  very  mem- 


42  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

ory  of  my  friend  Elbert  Hubbard,  murdered  in  the  Lusitania, 
needs  no  special  mention  here.  A  spiritual  son  of  J.  K. 
Stieber,  he  is  the  worthy  co-worker  of  that  poisonous  group 
of  false  Americans,  who,  in  order  to  cover  their  past  infam 
ous  activities,  claim  patriotic  distinction,  because  they  bought 
with  ill-gotten  money  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  of 
Liberty  Bonds.  Eternal  confusion  to  the  insidious  asps  of 
a  pandering  press,  and  praise  and  honor  to  that  noble  part 
of  the  American  press  which  spurned  all  efforts  of  the  enemy 
of  mankind!  And  glory  to  the  magnificent  Providence  Jour 
nal,  and  to  its  heroic  editor  Rathom,  who  unmasked  Teuton 
insidiousness,  and  pointed  out  to  perplexed  Washington  the 
pending  danger  and  the  way  of  salvation !  Unicuique  suum. 

Where  enemies  could  not  penetrate  through  American 
publications,  they  enlisted  the  cheap  services  of  a  foreign 
press,  chiefly  owned  and  edited  by  men  absolutely  ignorant 
ar.d  cynical,  who  are  unable  to  read  anything  but  a  check 
book.  Bolo  Pasha  made  his  biggest  inroads  through  such 
an  element.  A  number  of  years  ago,  I  pointed  out  news 
papers  which  were  the  official  organs  of  criminal  organiza 
tions.  They  protested  against  me,  frightened  the  American 
dailies  who  were  publishing  my  articles,  informed  me  that 
my  life  was  not  worth  ten  cents,  took  away  business  from  me 
and  bread  from  my  children,  and  enlisted  the  sympathy  and 
the  services  of  big  politicians.  I  preferred  to  lose  the  money 
I  was  making  through  my  publications,  and  refused  to  retract 
one  single  word  of  what  I  had  written.  Later  on,  what  I  had 
predicted  became  true.  Blackmail  ran  amuck.  Black-hand- 
ers  operated  on  a  large  scale  from  one  end  of  the  country  to 
the  other. 

Three  years  ago,  at  Washington,  on  Easter  day,  I  read 
the  ill-famed  appeal  to  the  American  people,  which  was  a 
German-Austrian  ruse  to  paralyze  all  activities  and  enlist 
the  sympathy  of  the  world  in  the  iniquitous  cause  of  the  Cen 
tral  Empires.  When  I  perused  the  signatures  of  certain  for 
eign  editors,  who  pretended  to  have  contributed  to  the  fund 
for  the  publication  and  diffusion  of  the  appeal,  I  knew  at 
once  that  something  was  wrong  somewhere,  because  they 
were  not  the  kind  of  people  to  give  a  penny  for  any  honest 
cause,  and  that  they  were  always  ready  to  bargain  anything 
for  a  consideration.  The  money  for  the  nefarious  under 
taking  had  been  furnished  by  Teutonic  sources.  It  was  the 
work  typical  of  Stieber  and  his  successors.  I  raised  the  cry 
of  alarm.  It  required  courage  and  disposition  to1  suffer  cal 
umny,  starvation,  and  moral  and  material  murder.  But  I 
performed  a  duty.  Many  Italian  editors  published  my  de 
nunciations,  and,  admitting  I  was  absolutely  right,  protested 
that  they  had  been  in  good  faith.  They  contended  that  they 
had  to  accept  anything  a  certain  individual  was  bringing  to 
them,  because  their  newspapers  would  be  compelled  to  cease 


Gigliottl — Cor  Mundi  43 

publication  if  the  advertisements  coming  from  that  source 
should  cease.  I  said  to  them:  "If  you  are  honest,  if  you 
have  a  remnant  of  self-respect  and  human  dignity,  leave  the 
pen  and  take  the  shovel."  I  am  not  personally  acquainted 
with  the  publicity  agent  of  the  Central  Empires,  who  has 
been  the  protegee  of  republican  politicians  and  organiza 
tions.  I  have  never  been  and  never  had  any  intention  to  be 
come  a  speculator  in  publicity.  But  I  blamed  and  blame  sin 
cerely  and  unreservedly  organizations,  firms,  and  individuals 
who,  in  order  to  serve  the  enemies  of  this  country,  have  made 
of  men,  who  are  as  brazen  as  they  are  ignorant,  the  Judas 
Iscariot  of  the  noble  nation  which  gave  them  what  they 
could  never  have  had  anywhere  else.  In  Europe  nerve  alone 
will  never  make  a  man  important:  he  must  have  manners, 
gentlemanship,  ability,  intelligence,  education.  In  Europe  a 
good  barber  and  a  good  shoemaker  will  be  respected  in  their 
trade;  but  they  cannot  write  editorials  or  preach  from  the 
pulpit  or  from  the  platform,  unless  they  are  men  of  excep 
tional  good  sense  and  intellect.  Gamblers,  pimps,  and  saloon 
keepers  may  sometimes  help  an  unscrupulous  but  capable 
candidate  for  public  office  to  win  here  and  there;  but  they 
will  never  run  for  office  or  attempt  to  control  political  par 
ties.  America  should  learn  the  lesson.  Democracy  means 
honor,  justice,  and  efficiency.  Prostitution  of  public  office 
is  negation  of  the  very  essence  of  democracy,  which  is  order 
and  not  perversion  of  the  most  elementary  rules  of  decent 
government. 

After  my  discovery  and  denunciations,  the  most  relent 
less  persecution  against  me  started.  Even  travelling  sales 
men  of  Socialism,  paid  by  the  secret  funds  of  Berlin  and  Vi 
enna,  thought  it  was  expedient  to  take  a  hand  in  the  new  cru 
sade  of  vituperation,  which  pleased  very  much  some  of  my 
fellow  citizens,  who  could  not  forget  some  political  differ 
ences  we  had  had.  German  gold  found  its  way  even  into 
unworthy  representatives  of  the  Italian  Government,  who 
were  and  are  very  frantic  against  me,  because  I  unmasked 
them  and  condemned  them  to  infamy  in  a  poem  which  will 
not  die,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the  smooth  crooks  who  enjoy 
the  special  protection  of  contemptible  speculators  of  patriot 
ism.  Whatever  I  did,  I  did  for  a  principle.  Everything  I 
have  gained  for  years  I  have  sacrificed  to  the  cause  of  real 
democracy.  I  am  perhaps  dying  now,  but  the  light  of  the 
ideal  makes  happy  even  my  last  moments.  And  dictating 
this  essay,  or  whatever  the  reader  may  call  it,  from  my  bed, 
I  am  positive  I  am  performing  a  last  duty.  I  know  that  the 
conditions  of  my  health  prevent  me  from  ordering,  group 
ing  properly,  giving  system  and  touch  to  my  information. 
But  I  have  no  intention  to  publish  a  scholarly  book.  The  way 
it  has  come  to  my  mind  and  heart,  I  have  dictated.  The  read 
er  will  certainly  excuse  the  shortcomings,  and  accept  the  in- 


44  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

formation,  which  is  correct  and  conscientious,  even  if  con 
fused  and  clumsy. 

Of  all  foreign  enemies  of  the  United  States,  Germany 
is  certainly  the  worst.  But  other  nations,  who  are  now 
friendly,  because  they  need  our  help,  have  been  jealous,  too. 
This  country  is  too  prosperous.  In  this  vast  continent,  we 
have  every  climate,  every  product,  every  blessing.  No  mat 
ter  what  people  of  the  United  States,  who  know  well  other 
countries,  and  who  are  extremely  ignorant  of  their  own,  may 
say,  we  have  everything  except  ancient  history  and  the  mon 
uments  and  ruins  of  glorious  countries  gone  by  long  since. 
If  you  want  the  Coliseum  and  the  Pyramids,  the  walls  of 
Nineveh  and  the  Parthenon,  Palmira  and  Persepolis,  Pesto 
and  Pompeii,  you  have  to  be  satisfied  with  seeing  them  on  the 
screen  or  depicting  them  in  your  imagination,  if  you  don't 
like  to  undertake  a  very  long  journey.  But  if  you  love  to 
admire  the  wonders  of  nature,  you  find  Europe,  Asia,  and 
Africa  right  in  this  immense  continent.  Colorado  is  as  beau 
tiful  as  Switzerland.  The  snow-capped  mountains  of  the 
West  are  as  interesting  and  as  imposing  as  the  Alps,  the  Ap 
ennines,  and  the  Himalayas.  If  you  like  a  sand-storm,  you 
don't  need  to  go  to  Sahara:  in  Arizona  you  can  satisfy  your 
curiosity  to  your  heart's  content.  The  bay  of  New  York  and 
the  Golden  Gate  of  San  Francisco  can  save  you  the  trouble 
of  a  visit  to  Naples,  Constantinople,  or  Athens.  Every  na 
tion  in  the  world  has  certain  things,  and  is  dependent  upon 
foreign  importations  for  others.  We  have  everything:  wool 
and  cotton,  coal  and  iron,  lead  and  copper,  silver  and  gold, 
granite  and  marble,  wheat  and  corn,  cement  and  lumber, 
vegetables  and  fruits  of  all  climates,  immense  prairies  and 
magnificent  forests,  superb  internal  waterways  and  two 
oceans.  Every  nation  in  the  world  envies  our  wealth,  our 
inexhaustible  resources.  Foreign  nations  have  apparently 
let  us  alone;  but  they  have  been  the  parasites  thriving  on 
our  very  blood  and  flesh.  We  have  fed  them.  Opening  our 
shores  to  the  over-population  of  other  countries,  we  have 
saved  them  from  revolutions.  The  money  accumulated  here 
and  sent  everywhere  by  immigrants  has  made  poor  nations 
rich,  has  saved  from  bankruptcy  entire  municipalities  and 
provinces.  We  have  generously  helped  other  nations  on  earth 
with  food,  money,  clothing,  goods  of  all  kinds,  every  time  a 
public  calamity  has  visited  them.  In  our  misfortunes  we 
have  done  without  foreign  help.  San  Francisco,  devastated 
by  a  frightful  earthquake,  by  her  own  virtue,  in  a  short  time 
is  rebuilt,  and  becomes  more  beautiful  than  before. 

Naturally,  other  nations  would  gladly  rob  us  of  our  re 
sources  and  wealth.  Scions  of  impoverished  noble  families 
have  flocked  here  to  marry  the  daughters  of  merchants, 
traders,  and  miners  made  vain  by  showers  of  gold.  Adven 
turers  have  brought  here  all  kinds  of  schemes  in  order  to  de- 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  45 

part  from  the  American  shores  with  sacks  of  dollars.  Un 
scrupulous  rascals  have  been  and  are  harvesting  wealth,  rob 
bing  the  unfortunate  foreigners  of  their  hard  gained  money, 
selling  them  watered  stocks,  worthless  sick,  accident  and  life 
insurance,  and  real  estate  at  prices  not  only  extortionate,  but 
at  conditions  which  mean  that  the  poor  buyer,  sooner  or 
later,  will  lose  everything.  Labor  agents,  generally  of  the 
nationality  of  the  poor  devils  sacrificed,  have,  when  supply 
was  inferior  to  the  demand,  done  things  which  should  have 
brought  them  to  the  penitentiary  several  times  and  for  long 
terms.  Instead,  they  found  the  protection  of  very  influential 
politicians;  and  some  of  them,  were  also  appointed  or  elected 
to  offices  of  honor  and  responsibility,  in  the  municipalities, 
in  the  state,  and  in  the  nation.  Very  few  foreigners,  who  be 
came  rich,  got  their  money  honestly.  The  labor  agents  took 
money  from  the  unfortunate  victims  for  brokerage,  charged 
them  with  the  price  of  transportation,  which  was  offered  in 
many  instances  free,  took  a  percentage  of  their  wages  later 
on,  and  compelled  them  to  buy  from  them  food  unfit  for  hu 
man  consumption.  Some  of  the  most  unscrupulous  of  them 
were  men  employed  by  railroad  companies. 

Many  of  the  unfortunate  victims  of  such  a  system  of 
extortion  and  slavery  have  an  idea  the  government  is  re 
sponsible  for  the  frightful  treatment  they  receive;  and  if 
they  go  back  to  Europe  before  they  become  thoroughly  ac 
quainted  with  the  real  United  States,  they  will  inflame  the 
souls  of  everybody  they  are  able  to  approach  against  the 
savagery  of  a  country  of  hypocrites  and  bandits,  which  has 
the  effrontery  to  pose  as  the  home  of  the  brave  and  the  land 
of  the  free.  It  is  to  a  certain  extent  the  case  of  Trotzky 
and  of  many  of  the  Bolsheviki,  who  are  denouncing  in  Rus 
sia  the  United  States  just  because,  having  been  here  in 
America,  they  met  with  frightful  experiences.  Every  wrong 
done  in  this  country  through  the  perfidy  of  unscrupulous 
politicians  or  the  rapacity  of  bandits  is  a  liability  for  Amer 
ica.  In  Germany,  in  Austria,  and  in  Bulgaria  unfriendly 
newspapers  are  illustrating  as  an  answer  to  President  Wil 
son  the  horrible  facts  I  have  mentioned.  And  to  the  gener 
ous  words  of  ex-President  Roosevelt  and  others,  after  the 
infamies  perpetrated  in  Belgium,  German  newspapers  were 
opposing  the  horrors  of  the  Colorado  Fuel  and  Iron  Com 
pany,  the  outrages  of  bossism  and  the  padrone  system,  the 
lynchings,  and  other  similar  pleasantries.  A  foreign  news 
paper,  bringing  to  light  the  fact  that  President  Roosevelt 
had  appointed,  while  governor  of  New  York,  Mr.  James  E. 
March  as  port  warden,  admonished :  "Medice,  cura  te  ipsum." 
Foreign  governments,  responsible  for  the  very  conditions 
mentioned  above,  speculate  on  the  ignorance  and  resentments 
of  their  subjects  residing  in  America,  doing  everything  in 
their  power  to  keep  them  away  from  real  American  spirit 


46  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

and  institutions,  and  inflaming  them  in  every  possible  way 
against  the  generous  and  hospitable  country  which  gave  them 
freedom,,  bread  and  opportunity. 

The  conditions  I  observed  in  the  beginning  in  New  York, 
exist  all  over  the  United  States,  somewhere  more,  somewhere 
less,  but  everywhere  a  menace  to  our  institutions  and  to  the  fu 
ture  of  our  country. 

Foreigners,  living  in  settlements  of  their  own,  keep  their 
customs,  their  prejudices,  their  language,  their  hatred  for 
their  neighbors  and  for  the  country  which  gave  them  food, 
shelter,  and  protection.  They  have  their  own  societies,  genu 
ine  nests  of  disloyalty  to  America;  their  own  language,  which 
makes  them  strangers  to  everything  we  stand  for;  their  own 
newspapers;  their  own  habits,  often  unclean  and  bothersome 
to  the  limit  of  endurance;  their  own  churches,  and  their  own 
flags.  They  worship  their  own  patron  saints  or  gods,  and 
have  praise  only  for  their  own  governments.  The  pictures 
of  kings,  emperors,  statesmen,  and  generals,  who  made  of 
them  castaways,  hang  from  their  walls,  and  are  worshipped 
by  them.  Once  in  a  while  you  find  among  them  revolution 
ary  groups — anarchistic  or  socialistic — but  instead  of  im 
proving  conditions,  they  make  them  worse,  because  they  de 
nounce  and  curse  the  United  States  much  more  than  they  do 
the  sinister  rulers  of  the  nations  they  came  from.  Had 
they,  in  their  native  countries,  uttered  some  of  the  expres 
sions  they  were  allowed  to  shout  at  the  top  of  their  voices 
here,  they  would  have  been  arrested,  prosecuted,  and  sent  to 
the  penitentiary  for  high  treason.  Take  Goldman,  Berkman, 
and  many  others;  they  have  had  the  impudence  to  preach 
publicly  that  the  United  States  is  a  worse  country  than  Rus 
sia  under  the  czars.  Fools,  demagogues  or  agents  of  foreign 
enemies,  they  have  been  preparing  the  ruin  of  our  country. 
If  it  is  true  that  many  of  the  revolutionary  energumens  are 
types  of  the  most  abominable  parasitism;  being  enemies  of 
work  and  virtue  and  honor,  they  tramp  around,  uttering 
abuse  against  law  and  order,  inflaming  ignorant  and  peace 
ful  workingmen  against  their  toil,  their  employers,  and  our 
government,  in  order  to  extort  from  them  shelter,  food,  cloth 
ing,  and  money  for  their  vices  and  dissipations.  The  state 
of  moral  perversion  of  some  of  the  preachers  of  socialism 
and  anarchism  in  the  country  is  such  that  the  government 
could  prosecute  them  and  send  them  justly  to  penitentiary, 
without  making  political  martyrs  of  pimps,  white  slavers, 
blackmailers,  and  crooks. 

These  strange  states  within  the  state — these  little  Italy, 
Russia,  Poland,  Hungary,  Greece,  etc. — are  matters  of  great 
concern  for  whoever  has  eyes  and  ears,  and  thinks  continu 
ally  of  the  safety  and  greatness  of  the  country.  The  paid 
agents  of  foreign  governments  are  busy  among  such  settle 
ments,  encouraging  them  to  do  all  they  can  to  oppose  every- 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  47 

thing  American.  In  order  to  carry  on  their  nefarious  work, 
they  incite  foreigners  to  apply  for  citizenship.  American 
citizenship,  they  contend,  does  not  signify  that  they  have  to 
renounce  allegiance  to  the  country  of  their  birth,  but  is  just 
a  scheme  to  advance  her  interests.  As  American  citizens, 
they  enjoy  all  the  rights  of  natives,  can  help  to  make  laws 
favorable  to  their  interests,  remaining  all  the  while  in  good 
standing  of  their  mother  countries.  The  doctrine  of  double 
citizenship,  in  the  sinister  light  of  fooling  America  in  the 
interests  of  foreign  countries,  has  been  cynically  and  openly 
discussed  in  the  newspapers  printed  in  foreign  languages  I 
have  mentioned,  and  in  conventions  held  in  European  capi 
tals.  It  has  been  done  with  the  knowledge  and  consent  of 
federal  authorities,  before  Mr.  Wilson  became  President  of 
the  United  States.  Adventurers  and  crooks  have  used  to 
advantage  the  traitors  invested  with  the  sacred  rights  of  cit 
izenship.  Men  elected  to  municipal,  judicial,  and  legislative 
offices  have  taken  orders  from  foreign  governments.  In  some 
cities  every  elementary  law  of  common  decency  has  been 
violated  by  mayors,  who  have  appointed  to  the  bench  men  who 
had  been  busy  preaching  the  doctrine  of  double  citizenship, 
or  who  were  the  consular  agents  of  foreign  governments. 
And  that  they  were  able  to  serve  those  foreign  governments 
much  better  than  the  United  States  is  amply  proved  by  the 
fact  that  they  were  knighted  by  kings  and  emperors.  Do  you 
suppose  for  a  single  instant  that  a  foreign  government  would 
give  a  coronet  to  one  of  its  former  subjects  who  has  be 
come  a  faithful,  conscientious,  patriotic  citizen  of  the  United 
States?  Generosity,  gratefulness,  homage  to  merit  are 
qualities  extraneous  to  the  hearts  of  kings,  who  decorate 
only  slaves  or  knaves  or  people  willing  to  pay  the  price.  Some 
times,  for  political  reasons,  they  decorate  men  of  note  or  for 
eign  representativs  who  are  part  of  special  missions;  but 
the  men  I  refer  to  are  not  in  this  class.  Now,  such  men  could 
not  be  fair  to  both  parties.  They  are  betraying  one  or  the 
other.  I  know  positively  of  foreign  consular  agents  closely 
allied  to  notorious  agents  of  the  Central  Empires.  They  have 
betrayed  not  only  the  United  States  of  America,  but  their  own 
governments.  And  this  is  the  best  proof  that  a  man,  who  is 
low  enough  to  become  a  spy,  is  low  enough  to  stop  at  nothing 
for  money:  a  man  who  prostitutes  his  own  conscience  will 
prostitute  his  wife,  his  sisters,  his  daughters,  his  mother,  his 
own  country!  Beware,  free  men  of  America!  Beware  of 
them!  Beware  of  traitors,  who  go  around  displaying  Amer 
ican  flags  and  delivering  speeches  on  Americanization,  in 
order  to  keep  suspicion  away  from  the  very  nature  of  their 
secret  work,  and  to  prevent  the  real,  unselfish  patriot  from 
performing  his  duty!  I  can  spot  many  of  them.  But  it  is 
Stieber^Stieber,  Stieber  that  I  am  exposing.  It  is  the  sys 
tem  which  endangers  the  dear  country  of  my  adoption  (the 


48  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

country  where  my  children  and  my  children's  children  live, 
and  where  I  hope  to  have  rest,  when  my  eyes  shall  see  no 
more  the  beneficent  light  of  the  sun)  that  I  wish  to  see  under 
stood  by  everybody,  and  destroyed  so  that  it  cannot  come  to 
life  any  more.  My  own  brother  is  a  good,  upright  American, 
and  a  professional  man  of  courage  and  merit;  and  yet  I  did 
not  stop  an  instant  to  denounce  him,  when  he  wrote  and  pub 
lished  things  which  seemed  to  me  blasphemous.  He  wrote 
an  ill-advised  book  against  woman  suffrage,  and  I  was  in 
dignant,  because  you  cannot  be  a  firm  believer  in  freedom, 
if  you  want  that  freedom  only  enjoyed  by  a  part  of  mankind 
and  denied  to  the  other.  At  Sparta,  Lycurgus  gave  women 
the  very  same  education  men  were  receiving;  and  Plato  in 
his  Ideal  City  advocated  absolute  equality  between  the  two 
sexes.  I  have  been  for  equal  suffrage  since  I  was  19  years 
of  age,  since  I  studied  in  the  original  Greek  the  works  of  the 
greatest  seer  of  antiquity,  who  took  pride  in  the  fact  that  he 
had  been  a  pupil  of  Socrates.  To  fight  what  we  sincerely 
consider  error  is  a  duty,  if  we  have  character  and  deep  con 
victions.  If  we  wish  to  have  some  day  peace,  we  must  wish 
peace  among  all  people,  among  all  our  fellow  beings 

The  kind  of  peace  the  Germans  and  their  allies  are  ad 
vocating  is  not  and  cannot  be  of  our  liking;  because  we  love 
mankind  and  want  the  greatest  good  for  the  greatest  number 
in  real  Jeffersonian  spirit.  To  the  enemies  of  real  democracy 
who  misuse  the  word  peace,  we  can  apply  the  expression  of 
Tacitus:  "Ubi  solitudinem  faciunt,  pacem  appellant." 

Only  the  other  day  I  learned  from  a  newspaper  a  friend 
was  reading  to  me  that  one  of  the  most  abominable  types  of 
spies — a  monster  of  ignorance  and  perversity — had  been  ap 
pointed  by  the  mayor  of  a  certain  city  to  a  position  of  honor 
and  responsibility!  There  are  in  that  city  Italians  well  read, 
well  bred,  able,  sincere,  honorable  to  a  fault.  But  men  of 
honor  cannot  be  blindly  used  by  politicians.  Unscrupulous 
politicians,  who  climb  high  not  by  merit,  but  by  the  mal 
odorous  schemings  of  rascality  and  graft,  need  as  tools  the 
worse  flowers  of  evil  which  bloom  in  the  garden  of  human 
degradation.  Men  with  brains  and  with  conscience  are  a  con 
tinuous  reproach  and  menace  to  them.  Did  not  rightly  ob 
serve  Victor  Hugo  that  the  highest  peaks  are  reached  only 
by  the  eagles  or  by  the  worms?  Until  civil  service  becomes 
a  reality  in  the  uncertainties  of  our  political  system,  it  is  im 
possible  to  expect  honor  and  efficiency  everywhere.  With 
the  exception  of  elective  positions,  where,  even  at  the  best, 
black  sheep  have  a  chance,  no  public  office,  no  matter  how 
low  or  exalted,  should  be  exempt  from  civil  service.  The 
judicial  power  should  be  absolutely  taken  away  from  politics, 
and  be  subject  to  civil  service,  so  that  an  able  man  could 
gradually  grow  from  justice  of  the  peace  to  coroner,  from 
coroner  to  district  attorney,  from  district  attorney  to  com- 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  49 

mon  pleas  judge,  and  so  forth.  The  system  of  electing  judges 
is  democratic  only  in  appearance,  but  partisan  in  fact.  In 
many  respects  it  is  a  perversion  of  justice.  Even  the  best 
man,  in  order  to  be  elected,  is  compelled  to  be  under  obliga 
tions  to  individuals,  who  are  often  stubborn,  habitual,  and 
cheerful  violators  of  the  law.  The  gentleman  of  ability  and 
integrity  is  seldom  in  a  position  to  influence  voters.  A  lib 
eral  supply  of  liquor  and  coin  has  changed  in  the  past  and 
will  change  in  the  future  many  responses  of  ballot  boxes. 

The  very  few  words  I  have  said  in  favor  of  civil  service 
are  not  new.  In  the  United  States  of  America  the  civil  ser 
vice  reform  found  great  exponents — Theodore  Roosevelt, 
above  all;  but  even  when  civil  service  was  adopted  politics 
dominated  it,  and  it  often  became  a  joke.  Men  very  high  in 
the  councils  of  the  nation  often  used  civil  service  as  a  club 
against  political  enemies  or  as  an  excuse  to  prefer  somebody 
else  for  a  job  to  people  they  had  made  promises  before  the 
elections.  Hypocrisy  is  not  civil  service :  it  is  hypocrisy,  pure 
and  simple,  the  most  comtemptible  mask  a  man  can  put  on 
his  face,  the  worst  blight  to  public  life,  the  negation  of  char 
acter  and  manhood. 

To  the  representatives  of  foreign  governments,  who  are 
engaged  in  the  nefarious  work  of  undermining  the  founda 
tions  on  which  our  institutions  rest,  must  be  added  the  mor 
bid  ambitions  of  the  cunning  individuals  of  foreign  settle 
ments.  They  build  societies  and  fraternal  orders  not  for  the 
good  of  the  members  and  the  country,  but  for  their  selfish, 
tenebrous  and  unconfessable  profit  and  advancement.  Moral 
and  material  welfare  of  the  members  are  only  on  the  statute 
books,  but  find  no  room  in  their  hearts :  they  wish  to  use  the 
mob  to  sell  them,  to  make  political  capital  out  of  them,  to 
keep  them  in  line  for  the  ends  of  the  foreign  governments, 
from  which  they  expect  money,  favors,  and  titles  of  distinc 
tion,  and  to  barter  them  in  order  to  go  to  the  bench  or  to 
legislative  halls.  In  other  times  they  were  the  sponsors  of 
the  "Mafia"  or  of  the  "Black  Hand" ;  now  they  are  the  grand 
masters  of  organizations,  where  they  admit  freely  the  ig 
norant  and  the  low  criminal,  and  keep  away  the  honest  and 
the  able,  because  they  are  afraid  that  the  latter  may,  sooner 
or  later,  cause  their  downfall.  They  make  so  much  noise 
about  their  love  for  the  United  States  of  America.  If  sta 
tistics  are  not  deceptive,  see  how  many  of  them  are  willing 
to  serve  our  country,  when  the  hour  of  need  came.  Many 
who  had  taken  citizen  papers  for  the  reasons  explained  al 
ready  were  furious  when  they  found  they  were  compelled 
to  serve  in  the  national  army.  Newspapers  always  make 
things  worse — foreign  newspapers,  I  mean.  They  know  so 
little  of  American  history  and  ideals — to  be  exact,  they  know 
very  little  of  any  history  and  of  any  ideals — that  whatever 
they  say  on  the  subject  creates  disgust  to  the  ones  who  know, 


50  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

and  confusion  to  the  ignorant.  Instead  of  making  of  their 
pages  a  school  of  education  and  of  civic  and  domestic  virtues, 
they  abuse  this  country,  magnify  the  glories  of  the  countries 
of  the  birth  of  their  editors  and  readers,  follow  with  servil 
ity  the  representatives  of  old  country  governments,  and  ad 
dress  appeals  to  the  public  sometimes  to  defend  notorious 
criminals,  some  others  to  protest  against  legislators,  judges, 
or  police  officials,  who  uncovered  and  sent  where  they  be 
longed  gangs  of  gunners,  counterfeiters,  blackmailers,  white 
slavers,  murderers  of  their  own  nationality.  If  there  are 
men  of  great  moral  worth  in  their  midst,  they  are  very  care 
ful  to  ignore  them.  Honorable  men  do  not  buy  the  praise  of 
mud-slingers.  But  if  there  is  any  rascal  who  can  give  din 
ners  and  buy  drinks  and  lend  money,  which  will  never  be  re 
turned,  they  say  the  most  wonderful  things  of  him.  Such 
ignorance,  sycophancy,  and  prostitution  of  the  noble  mission 
of  the  press — a  mission  which  is  at  times  betrayed  even  by 
American  publications — is  very  dangerous.  It  increases  the 
number  of  enemies  and  traitors  among  the  inhabitants 
of  the  foreign  settlements.  If  the  war  had  done  no  other 
benefit  to  America  than  to  put  a  muzzle  on  that  venomous 
press,  it  would  have  accomplished  quite  a  bit.  The  nefari 
ous  work  cannot  be  stopped  entirely;  but  the  order  to  print 
nothing  about  the  war,  without  giving  a  faithful  translation 
of  it  to  the  Postmaster,  will  prevent  reptiles  from  spreading 
harm.  I  am  a  firm  believer  in  a  free  press.  I  agree  with 
Thomas  Jefferson,  the  father  and  the  founder  of  American 
Democracy.  But  the  press  should  educate  and  not  prostitute 
minds.  Honest  criticism  is  often  more  useful  than  unstinted 
praise;  but  misrepresentation  and  vituperation  should  not 
be  tolerated  in  a  free  country  of  men  of  honor. 

The  methods  of  Stieber  employed  in  Bohemia  and  in 
France  should  not  be  tolerated  in  America.  What  Berns- 
torf,  Boy-Ed,  Von  Papen,  Dumba,  and  their  legion  have  been 
doing,  has  been  done  and  is  done  by  all  foreign  governments. 
Nobody  knows  it  better  than  the  Secretary  of  State.  I  have 
an  idea  that  even  the  seraphic  Mr.  Bryan,  who  brought  into 
the  State  Department  at  Washington  the  extreme  pacifism 
of  Leo  Tolstoy,  necessarily  gained  some  knowledge  of  it. 

Foreign  governments,  in  order  to  keep  their  former 
subjects  as  their  own  colonists  for  commercial  and  political 
purposes,  have  depended  not  only  on  the  methods  mentioned 
above,  but  on  the  supine  complacency  of  our  federal  govern 
ment,  which  has  been  very  often  rich  in  words,  but  extreme 
ly  poor  in  achievements.  While  every  government  in  the 
world,  no  matter  how  humble,  has  been  very  emphatic  in  up 
holding  the  rights  of  its  citizens,  the  United  States  have  often 
and  willingly  played  into  the  hands  of  the  representatives  of 
European  foreign  offices.  American  citizenship  did  not  ex 
empt  from  military  service  in  certain  countries.  A  man,  for 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  51 

instance,  coming  here  from  Italy  or  from  Russia,  could  not 
go  for  a  visit  to  the  country  of  his  birth  without  being  ar 
rested  as  a  slacker  and  compelled  to  serve  in  the  army.  His 
American  passport  was  not  a  protection  to  him:  authorities, 
insolent,  arrogant,  cynical,  would  humiliate,  ridicule,  offend 
him,  as  soon  as  he  would  shelter  himself  under  the  protection 
of  his  American  citizenship.  "For  the  present  you  will  go 
to  the  devil,  to  jail,  and  to  the  barracks.  In  the  meantime 
you  can  write  your  president  to  send  here  his  navy  and  his 
army."  More  than  once  similar  answers  have  been  given. 
Similar  instances  have  happened  during  Cleveland's,  Mc- 
Kinley's,  Roosevelt's,  Taft's,  and  Wilson's  administrations. 
England,  not  having  the  conscription,  never  gave  us  the 
slightest  trouble.  France  was  the  only  country  in  continental 
Europe  where  American  citizenship  was  held  in  high  consid 
eration.  When  Elihu  Root — one  of  the  foremost  statesmen 
of  modern  times — was  secretary  of  state,  I  tried  to  induce 
members  of  Congress  to  persuade  him  to  have  international 
agreements,  which  would  guarantee  the  rights  of  naturalized 
citizens  abroad,  provided,  of  course,  they  had  not  been  guilty  of 
any  crime.  It  seemed  to  me  that  foreign  governments  should 
be  persuaded  that  to  say  "I  am  an  American  citizen"  would 
be  equivalent  to  the  "Cives  Romanus  sum"  of  yore.  I  don't 
see  why  America  should  not  be  able  to  enforce  the  protection 
of  her  citizens  as  well  as  England  does.  No  country  in  the 
world,  before  the  present  war  at  least,  would  have  dared  to 
disregard  the  rights  of  a  British  subject.  If  a  foreign  am 
bassador,  for  instance,  had  been  told  by  the  secretary  of 
state:  "My  dear  sir,  we  have  nothing  but  feelings  of  friend 
ship  for  your  government;  but  we  intend  to  be  treated  with 
equal  courtesy.  If  our  naturalized  citizens  cannot  go  to  your 
country  without  being  taken  forcibly  into  military  service, 
we  will  be  compelled,  much  to  our  regret,  to  hand  you  your 
passports,"  foreign  governments  would  have  called  off  their 
bluff.  Remember,  it  is  impossible  to  have  faithful  servants, 
when  they  know  they  cannot  depend  on  your  protection.  We 
have  been  insulted  by  foreign  governments  every  time  we 
have  tried  to  pass  a  law  to  protect  our  own  interests,  our 
own  labor,  our  own  industries,  our  own  boundaries.  Their 
own  press  in  our  very  continent  has  poured  abuse  on  Con 
gress,  on  the  cabinet,  on  the  President.  What  have  we  done 
when  they  have  treated  with  contempt  the  rights  of  our  citi 
zens?  They  are  friendly  and  humble  now,  because  they  are 
on  their  knees,  and  need  our  money,  our  food,  our  blood.  And 
yet,  they  come  in  our  midst,  and  get  everything  they  ask.  A 
naturalized  citizen  may  have  social  relations  with  any  of  the 
foreign  diplomats,  just  as  any  native;  but  social  intercourse 
has  nothing  to  do  with  betraying  one's  country.  Natural 
ized  citizens,  who  use  the  glorious  country  of  their  adoption 
only  as  a  cow  to  milk,  and  for  reasons  of  their  own  pay  trib- 


52  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

ute  and  take  orders  from  representatives  of  foreign  govern 
ments,  even  if  those  representatives  come  from  nations 
where  they  were  born,  have  in  their  veins  the  blood  of  Judas 
Iscariot  and  lago.  The  foreign  settlements  in  our  big  cities 
are  all  equally  tainted.  In  the  last  municipal  campaign  in 
New  York,  the  socialists  elected  to  the  bench,  to  the  board  of 
aldermen,  to  the  legislature,  were  they  imbued  with  the 
American  spirit?  The  action  of  the  socialistic  members  of 
the  Assembly  at  Albany — does  that  show  that  they  were  act 
ing  as  men  who  love  the  country  they  are  supposed  to  serve? 
Did  Mr.  Berger  represent  in  Congress  the  American  people? 
And  is  Mr.  London  not,  more  than  the  representative  of  a  na 
tional  constituency  at  Washington,  the  spokesman  of  voters 
who  are  not  in  sympathy  with  American  traditions  and  ideals  ? 
Do  the  so-called  socialists  realize  that  their  high  priest,  Marx, 
at  the  time  of  the  Franco-Prussian  war,  forgot  everything 
about  the  doctrines  he  had  been  preaching,  and  stated  em 
phatically  that  Germany  must  humiliate  France,  and  annex 
Alsace  and  Lorraine,  two  rich  provinces  necessary  to  her 
needs  and  her  expansion?  In  their  indignation  about  the 
war,  have  they  forgotten  how  deeply  Marx  appreciated  and 
extolled  the  American  Civil  War?  Have  they  forgotten  that 
Ferdinand  Lassalle,  the  most  sincere  and  enlightened  among 
the  founders  of  socialism  in  Germany  and  Europe,  stated 
as  emphatically  as  it  was  possible  for  him,  that  it  was  absurd 
to  talk  of  socialism  and  peace  before  the  principle  of  nation 
ality  and  the  political  independence  of  states  had  triumphed? 
But  knowledge  implies  study,  and  study  is  work.  The  brand 
of  socialists  we  are  mentioning  do  not  seem  to  be  on  very 
friendly  terms  with  work.  One  of  them  was  in  need  of  every 
thing,  and  yet  he  was  young,  enjoyed  splendid  health  and 
great  vigor,  and  everybody  would  have  been  pleased  to  give 
him  work.  A  friend  advised  him  to  get  a  job,  and  pointed 
out  the  well-established  truth  that  work  ennobles  man. 
"Why,"  he  objected,  "have  you  forgotten  that  I  am  a  sincere 
opponent  of  nobility  in  every  form?  Work  ennobles  man. 
To  hell  with  work."  If  we  wish  to  save  our  free  institutions, 
and  start  to  walk  on  the  path  of  justice  and  honor,  we  have 
to  destroy  the  influences  which  are  undermining  our  institu 
tions.  We  must  absolutely  eliminate  from  our  midst  what 
ever  is  a  menace  to  our  future  greatness,  be  it  the  deleteri 
ous  influence  of  foreign  governments  and  settlements,  or  the 
hypocritical  and  dictatorial  tendencies  of  national  govern 
ments,  which  may  have  done  things  of  which  Abraham  Lin 
coln  would  have  felt  ashamed.  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  genius 
of  America,  the  man  Carducci  compared  to  Garibaldi,  and 
Victor  Hugo  to  Lycurgus!  Abraham  Lincoln,  who  embodied 
all  the  virtues  of  all  the  seers  and  all  the  liberators  in  the 
history  of  mankind!  Abraham  Lincoln,  who,  in  his  work  of 
emancipation,  made  America  understand  that  after  the  abo- 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  53 

lition  of  slavery,,  it  was  necessary  to  emancipate  man  from 
himself,  to  build  character,  which  is  the  foundation  of  the 
greatness  of  a  people,  because  it  puts  men  above  dollars,  and 
honor  above  monopoly.  According  to  the  best  conception  of 
statesmanship  and  international  law,  great  nations  should 
become  the  unselfish  protectors  of  the  little  ones.  The  giant 
who  knocks  down  children,  women,  and  old  people,  revolting 
as  he  is,  is  not  as  bad  as  the  nation  which  assassinates,  op 
presses,  and  degrades  small  states.  We  have  our  faults,  too. 
We  have  been  unjust  to  small  states  in  the  islands  of  the  Car- 
ribean  sea  and  Central  America.  And  diplomatic  methods 
employed  by  us  have  not  always  been  above  reproach.  I  have 
no  desire  to  criticize  our  government,  which,  especially  in 
this  moment,  has  accomplished  wonders,  and  is  entitled  to 
all  our  love  and  our  support.  But  we  are  longing  for  a  Wash 
ington  which  will  be  the  beacon  light  of  righteousness  to  the 
world,  for  the  New  Rome  of  promise,  justice,  honor,  enlight 
enment,  civilization  to  mankind.  We  feel  humiliated  when 
foreign  nations  reproach  us  for  what  we  find  blamable  in 
them.  Our  veracity  should  never  be  questioned.  Like 
Caesar's  wife,  a  great  country  like  ours  should  be  above  sus 
picion. 

IX. 

There  are  thousands  of  foreign  organizations  in  the 
United  States  of  America.  Practically  there  is  no  hamlet 
in  all  the  states  and  territories  where  there  are  no  foreign 
settlements.  In  my  many  travels  I  have  been  surprised  to  find 
Italians,  even  in  places  where  I  never  expected  it  would  have 
been  possible  for  them  to  go.  I  found  Italians  in  the  interior 
of  Japan,  Australia,  China,  India,  Persia,  Morocco.  Even 
in  Tobolsk,  Siberia,  while  in  a  moment  of  just  resentment, 
I  was  praying  in  my  inimitable  slang  of  Naples,  in  the  cer 
tainty  that  nobody  could  understand  me  and  have  me  arrested 
for  cursing  the  czar  and  his  employees,  who  were  the  most 
unscrupulous  and  brazen  thieves  and  scoundrels  the  world 
has  ever  produced,  I  was  surprised  to  see  a  man  coming  to 
ward  me  with  outstretched  hands,  gleaming  eyes,  and  smiling 
lips :  "Why !"  he  said  with  real  delight,  "this  is  the  first  time 
I  see  a  Neapolitan  here.  Forget  your  troubles.  I  know  you 
will  accept  my  hospitality  and  enjoy  a  dish  of  macaroni." 
He  was  an  employee  of  the  Russian  government,  and  advised 
me  to  be  very  careful  not  to  repeat  the  same  words  in  any 
language  the  Russian  police  could  understand,  if  I  wished 
to  reach  in  safety  the  end  of  my  journey. 

Among  the  foreign  organizations  in  America,  many  of 
them  pretend  to  be  loyal  to  the  hospitable  country  where  they 
are  thriving.  But  none  of  them,  in  spite  of  the  false  pre 
tenses  of  their  constitutions  and  by-laws,  is  really  sincere. 
The  glowing  words  and  declarations  about  citizenship  and 


54  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

love  and  loyalty  are  shameful  decoys  in  order  to  enjoy  the 
protection  of  the  law,  to  obtain  incorporation,  and  to  use  and 
abuse  each  and  every  privilege.  Take  a  list  of  foreign  organ 
izations,  and  find  how  many  of  them  have  names  dear  to 
American  hearts.  Even  the  bitterest  enemies  of  America 
among  the  inhabitants  of  foreign  settlements  must  love  and 
respect  some  of  the  famous  names  in  the  history  of  this  coun 
try.  Many  of  the  great  Americans  have  been  benefactors  of 
the  world.  Franklin,  Fulton,  Morse,  Edison,  with  their  in 
ventions,  have  become  citizens  of  the  world.  Emerson — one 
of  the  immortal  trinity  of  the  Universalists,  the  other  two 
being  Montaigne  and  Amiel — is  a  beacon  light  of  transcen 
dental  philosophy.  Edgar  Allen  Poe,  the  foremost  writer  in 
America  and  one  of  the  masters  of  all  nations  and  ages,  is 
the  founder  of  a  great  and  original  school.  Daniel  Webster 
was  the  peer  of  Demosthenes  and  Cicero.  George  Washing- 
thon,  making  this  country  independent  from  British  rule, 
gave  inspiration  and  hope  to  all  the  oppressed.  Thomas  Jef 
ferson  was  the  founder  of  the  only  sane  Democracy.  If  the 
"Social  Contract"  of  poor  Rousseau  was  the  gospel  of  the 
French  Revolution,  the  writings  and  example  of  Thomas  Jef 
ferson  became  the  gospel  of  that  new  religion  of  justice, 
honor,  brotherhood,  equality,  and  simplicity,  which  produced, 
later  on,  thousands  of  miles  away,  that  immortal  master  of 
freedom,  Giuseppe  Mazzini.  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  greatest 
of  all  Americans  and  one  of  the  very  few  extraordinary  men 
in  the  history  of  the  world,  belongs  to  mankind.  Henry 
George  in  Progress  and  Poverty  indicated  to  the  nations  the 
only  logical  way  to  solve  the  social  problem.  And — to  name 
another  good  American,  although  his  fame  is  not  such  as  to 
defy  the  centuries — Longfellow,  as  a  poet,  is  very  dear  to 
whoever  likes  elegance  of  diction  and  nobleness  of  thought. 
And  yet,  how  many  of  the  foreign  societies  and  lodges  are 
named  after  them?  But  every  booby  of  Europe  who  happens 
to  write  things  not  always  lofty  and  inspiring  and  worthy  and 
lasting  has  been  honored  by  the  naming  of  some  organization 
after  him. 

Read,  for  instance,  the  names  of  all  societies  of  people 
residing  here  and  born  in  foreign  lands.  You  will  find  the 
names  of  their  kings,  their  emperors,  their  princes,  their  gen 
erals,  their  statesmen,  their  scientists,  their  writers,  their 
politicians ;  but  you  are  unable  to  discover  a  single  name  dear 
to  the  hearts  of  patriotic  Americans.  Yes,  the  Polish  have 
several  societies  named  after  Kosciuszko;  and  the  Italians 
of  every  state  and  of  almost  every  city  have  organizations 
named  after  Christopher  Columbus.  But  Polish  and  Italians, 
in  honoring  the  memories  of  Kosciuszko  and  Columbus,  have 
intended  to  celebrate  the  glories  of  their  race,  and  have  had 
no  intention  whatever  to  glorify  America,  which  one  dis 
covered,  and  the  other  fought  for. 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  55 

The  same  thing  must  be  said  of  others.  The  most  abom 
inable  hypocrisy  in  all  this  is  the  fact  that  some  of  these  or 
ganizations  have  provisions  in  their  constitutions  to  encour 
age  Americanization.  In  a  certain  convention  of  one  of  the 
organizations  I  refer  to,  held  last  year  at  Washington,  one  of 
the  delegates,  who  had  the  virtue  of  frankness,  proposed  to  be 
sincere  and  leave  entirely  out  of  the  statute  books  the  pro 
visions  about  Americanization.  "How  can  we  serve  at  the 
same  time  two  masters?"  he  exclaimed.  "We  know  that  the 
aims  of  our  order  are  exclusively  to  keep  kindled  in  the  hearts 
of  its  members  the  flame  of  absolute  devotion  to  the  country 
of  their  birth  and  origin.  Are  we  not  unworthy  of  our  self- 
respect  when  we  deceive  the  country  which  is  so  generous  in 
hospitality?"  The  presiding  officer  ruled  him  out  of  order 
with  the  following  words,  which  are  absolutely  testual :  "We 
all  know  our  aims.  We  are  with  America  only  as  far  as  we 
can  go.  But  our  hearts  are  with  our  country,  no  matter 
whether  naturalizzed  or  not.  Expediency  requires  just  in 
this  moment  to  have  certain  articles  in  our  statute  books,  not 
to  observe  them,  but  to  keep  away  from  us  suspicion  on  ac 
count  of  the  hyphen  issue."  I  heard  such  words  with  my  own 
ears.  A  delegate,  who  is  a  good  American,  protested  against 
such  an  exhibition  of  hypocrisy,  which  amounts  almost  to 
treason;  but  everybody  was  on  his  feet,  shouting  abuse,  and 
denouncing  as  infamous  what  was  honest,  manly,  and  praise 
worthy.  The  riot  ceased  only  when  it  was  announced  that 
the  police  were  ready  to  clear  the  hall  and  to  arrest  the  lead 
ers;  but  it  started  again  a  few  minutes  afterward. 

Of  the  action  and  the  ability  of  the  newspapers  I  have 
already  said  all  that  could  be  said.  To  waste  more  time  on  them 
would  be  equivalent  to  take  an  Indian  billiken  for  a  work  of 
art,  and  spend  useless  moments  in  stupid  admiration.  The 
truth  is  that  the  great  majority  of  people  who  come  to  this 
country,  with  only  the  prospect  of  making  money,  are  morally 
deficient :  and  the  more  intelligent  and  enterprising  Ihey  are, 
the  more  dangerous  they  become  to  the  immediate  neigh 
bors  first,  to  the  city  after,  and  to  the  country  finally  and 
surely.  The  Irish  saloonkeeper,  the  German  brewer  and 
gambler,  the  Hebrew  pawnbroker  and  installment  jeweller, 
the  French  keeper  of  bawdy  houses,  the  Italian  murderer, 
the  Chinese  opium  seller,  the  Polish  thief,  the  Russian  incen 
diary,  the  Austrian  counterfeiter,  the  white  slaver  from  all 
countries,  the  polished  American  crook,  are  by  no  means  typi 
cal  representatives  of  their  countries,  because  criminality 
has  no  country  of  its  own.  They  are  just  illustrations  of  the 
truth  that  when  money,  and  money  alone,  becomes  the  goal 
of  man,  he  will  fatally  follow,  without  being  able  to  philoso 
phize  on  evil,  the  old  theory  of  Frederick  the  Great,  which 
has  been  quoted  previously.  Greed  for  money  is  responsible 
for  the  baseness  of  politics.  In  years  gone  by,  I  was  unable 


56  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

to  explain  why  certain  notorious  criminals  in  New  York  could 
enjoy  the  friendship  and  the  protection  for  themselves  and 
their  pals  of  the  municipal  and  state  authorities — police, 
legislative,  and  judiciary.  But  now  I  understand  it  perfectly. 
Philadelphia  and  Chicago,  Cleveland  and  San  Francisco,  Cin 
cinnati  and  Seattle,  Baltimore  and  New  Orleans,  every  city 
and  every  state,  are  no  better  and  no  worse  than  New  York. 
No  reform  will  bring  any  change  unless  voters  are  made  bet 
ter,  and  better  voters  will  smash  all  political  machines  and 
elect  honest  men.  Many  laws  tend  always  to  hamper  justice. 
Summum  jus  summa  injuria.  Take  greed  away  from  men's 
hearts,  and  you  have  taken  away  crookedness.  When  a  man 
believes  money  is  the  supreme  end  in  life,  he  will  make  money 
honestly,  if  he  can;  but  he  will  become  a  counterfeiter,  a 
crook,  a  pickpocket,  a  procurer,  anything  in  the  criminal 
scale,  if  it  can  be  done  without  danger.  Morally,  there  is  no 
difference  between  a  real  estate  dishonest  deal  and  a  bur 
glary:  if  any,  the  burglar  will  be  the  more  honorable  of  the 
two.  But  the  real  estate  dealer  helps  to  make  the  laws,  and 
the  burglar  does  not;  hence  the  difference  in  the  treatment 
through  the  administration  of  justice. 

People  who  come  from  foreign  countries  to  make  money 
and  to  enjoy  the  same  pleasures,  privileges,  and  power  of  the 
wealthy  oppressors  they  left  behind,  will  stop  at  nothing  to 
succeed.  As  money  is  their  only  goal,  they  study  how  to  make 
and  keep  it,  without  the  annoyance  of  police  and  judicial  inter 
ference  ;  and  so  they  spend  freely  to  elect  to  office  people  who 
will  take  care  of  them,  and  give  them  a  share  of  their  illicit 
profits  to  compensate  them  for  the  risk  they  take  in  persecut 
ing  the  small  offenders,  and  leaving  in  peace  the  big.  No  man 
became  exceptionally  rich,  except  by  mere  freaks  of  for 
tune.  Almost  always  the  measure  of  honesty  of  a  man  of 
ability  is  his  pocketbook.  Socrates  gave  as  the  best  proof  of 
his  innocence  to  his  judges  his  poverty.  Look  around.  The 
worst  thieves  are  not  always  in  the  penitentiary.  Conditions 
arising  from  the  present  war  have  shown  clearly  how  many 
real  honest  men  we  have  in  our  midst.  Do  you  have,  if  you 
are  in  good  faith  and  perfectly  impartial  in  your  estimate, 
more  respect  for  the  highway  robbers,  or  for  the  grocers  and 
the  bakers  who  bought  cheap  large  amounts  of  goods  which 
they  are  selling  back  to  a  long-suffering  public  at  enormous 
profits  ?  I  know  of  Italian  grocers,  who  bought  Roman  cheese 
for  28  cents  a  pound  and  less,  and  are  selling  it  at  two  dol 
lars!  Do  you  have  an  idea  how  many  millions  of  dollars  the 
makers  of  domestic  macaroni  have  robbed  in  the  last  two 
years?  Do  you  know  how  much  stuff,  poorly  manufactured 
here,  is  sold  as  imported  to  an  unsophisticated  public,  when 
importations  of  such  goods  have  ceased  long  ago?  Many  of 
the  people,  who  are  engaged  in  selling  life  necessities,  display 
American  flags,  have  Red  Cross  buttons  in  the  lapels  of  their 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  57 

coats,  extol  the  patriotism  of  the  government  and  the  hero> 
ism  of  the  soldiers,  and  rob  unmercifully,  unscrupulously, 
and  in  cold  blood  the  American  people;  and  the  most  abom 
inable  thieves  are  not  Germans.  Money!  Always  money! 
Does  it  give  happiness?  Does  it  make  people  better?  Does 
it  uplift  the  ones  who  possess  it,  and  make  of  them  a  blessing 
to  the  community,  and  a  source  of  inspiration  to  the  luke 
warm  and  indifferent  among  the  wealthy?  And  yet,  there 
is  much  more  happiness  in  giving  than  in  receiving,  as  can 
be  testified  by  people  who  have  received  from  nature  and  God 
the  gift  of  good  hearts  and  generous  souls!  Nobody  has  an 
idea  of  the  perfect  happiness  a  man  or  a  woman  engaged  in 
humanitarian  work  experiences  after  hours  and  hours  spent 
rescuing,  feeding,  clothing,  nursing,  consoling,  burying. 

Danger,  discomfort,  weariness,  suffering,  physical  ex 
haustion,  lack  of  rest,  food,  and  sleep,  are  not  felt.  When  you 
seem  near  collapse,  new  strength,  wonderful,  unexpected,  di 
vine,  comes  to  you.  The  more  you  do,  the  more  you  like  to 
do.  The  smile  of  the  wounded  you  have  rescued,  the  bless 
ings  of  the  mothers  whose  children  you  have  restored  to 
them,  the  victory  you  have  won  over  the  elements  of  blind 
devastation  and  destruction,  even  the  grumblings  of  ingrati 
tude  often  you  notice  around,  make  you  happy  in  the  midst  of 
so  much  unhappiness,  give  you  the  feeling  of  greatness  among 
so  much  squalor,  offer  you  the  best  proof  that  immortal  is 
the  soul  of  man,  beautify  and  idealize  the  divine  spark  of 
your  mortal  and  decaying  clay!  Only  he  who  knows  what  it 
is  understands  me.  Enjoy  banquets  and  dances;  take  part 
in  brilliant  events;  spend  days  and  evenings  and  nights  in 
social  functions,  celebrations  of  all  kinds,  dissipations;  and 
next  day  you  feel  tired,  dissatisfied,  ashamed,  weary,  dis 
gusted  with  yourself,  with  life,  and  with  mankind.  Men  and 
women  in  the  height  of  their  social  successes  have  commit 
ted  suicide.  Only  a  few  days  ago,  the  famous  Italian  philos 
opher,  Roberto  Ardigo',  the  very  old  and  worshiped  profes 
sor  of  the  University  of  Padua,  cut  his  throat  with  a  razor, 
leaving  on  his  desk  a  sheet  with  the  words:  "Life?  Is  life 
worth  living?"  Had  he  in  mind  to  follow  the  example  of 
Cato,  who  committed  suicide  when  Rome  lost  her  liberty? 
But  work  done  for  the  sake  of  humanity  —  no  matter  how 
hard  and  even  superior  to  physical  endurance — makes  you 
feel  better  next  day;  gives  you  a  great  peace  of  heart  and 
mind  while  your  material  strength  is  collapsing.  I  have 
had  some  very  good  and  some  very  miserable  days  in 
my  stormy  life.  But  the  only  memories  which  fill  with  de 
light  my  heart  are  the  days  of  strenuous  intensity  I  spent 
performing  my  duty  in  locations  visited  by  awful  calami 
ties:  floods,  pestilences,  earthquakes!  I  had  very  little 
patience  with  kings,  queens,  and  other  pretentious  and  gilded 
human  mud.  But  I  worship  the  very  footsteps  of  Helen  of 


58  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

France,  Duchess  of  Aosta.  Why?  Her  work  in  the  service 
of  humanity  has  made  of  her  a  divine  being,  and  has  given 
her  style  and  her  books  that  immortal  spark  of  life  which 
fills  you  with  enchantment.  Versailles  under  that  powerful 
master  Louis  XIV  was,  in 'spite  of  her  brilliancy,  "vanitas 
vanitatum."  That  real  descendant  of  Louis  XIV  makes  a  Ver 
sailles  of  any  hamlet ;  but  a  brilliant,  useful,  blessed  Versailles 
—be  it  a  hospital  for  the  relief  of  the  victims  of  the  earthquake 
of  Messina  and  Reggio,  or  a  Red  Cross  ambulance  in  the  Ital 
ian  battle  front. 

"War  is  hell!"  wrote  Sherman.  True.  But  blessed  be 
the  war,  if  it  will  restore  human  sentiments  and  understand 
ings  in  our  hearts.  The  people,  who  are  accumulating  wealth 
through  war,  need  some  good,  powerful  stimulus  to  cease  be 
ing  hoarding  animals,  and  return  to  men.  If  their  homes 
would  be  visited  with  some  calamities,  as  the  heroic  deaths  of 
their  children  in  the  battle  front,  if  their  daughters  would  vol 
unteer  their  services  as  war  nurses  and  could,  after  a  period  of 
noble  and  useful  service,  come  back  home  to  relate  their  ex 
periences,  if  the  inevitable  hardships  would  visit  them  with 
unusual  severity,  their  hearts  would  be  inevitably  touched; 
and  they  would  realize  how  empty  it  is  to  be  rich  and  power 
ful,  and  how  inspiring  to  be  human. 

The  wild  hunting  for  wealth  is  the  greatest  of  our  curses. 

In  many  countries  of  Europe — impoverished  by  the  enor 
mous  expenses  of  big  navies,  large  standing  armies,  huge  sal 
aries  to  kings,  emperors  and  royal  families — the  enormous 
emigration  to  America  has  been  for  years  and  years  the  great 
est  of  blessings  and  assets.  The  millions,  who  came  to 
America,  made  political  unrest  less  dangerous,  bread  riots 
almost  impossible,  and  caused  poverty  to  disappear.  Foreign 
savings  banks,  belonging  to  European  governments,  were 
made  the  depositories  of  millions  and  millions  of  dollars.  Very 
poor  communities  became  affluent.  Cities,  provinces,  and 
states,  very  near  bankruptcy,  were  saved  by  the  magical 
stream  of  gold  coming  incessantly  from  America.  People, 
who  had  hardly  pennies,  became  the  proud  possessors  of  hun 
dreds  and  thousands  of  dollars.  Families  of  peasants  and 
workingmen,  who  had  known  nothing  but  rags,  corn  or  chest 
nut  bread,  abjection,  with  the  money  received  from  America 
became  at  once  well-to-do,  influential,  arrogant;  because  it  is 
one  of  the  bad  traits  of  the  humble  to  become  intolerable  as 
soon  as  money  turns  his  head.  We  know  how  ridiculous,  ar 
rogant,  and  contemptible  are  the  American  upstarts,  who  mis 
take  snobbism  for  gentlemanship,  and  insolence  for  mark  of 
distinction.  High  taxes,  large  expenses,  unproductive  lives, 
caste  prejudice,  stupid  vanity,  love  of  appearances,  slowly  but 
inexorably  impoverished  and  brought  to  sheriff  sale  many  of 
the  most  conspicuous  families.  Large  estates,  palaces,  where 
the  nobles  had  dwelt,  castles,  were  sold  for  a  song,  at  public 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  59 

auction  to  the  sons  and  the  daughters  of  old  tenants,  servants, 
and  slaves.  Some  scions  of  the  nobility  saved  their  fortunes 
from  impending  wreck  by  marrying  the  rich  daughters  of 
peasants,  shop-keepers,  people  who  had  acquired  wealth  by 
brigandage,  smuggling,  blackmail,  prostitution,  and  espion 
age.  Others,  more  enterprising,  put  their  titles  in  the  matri 
monial  markets  of  foreign  agencies.  Yet,  a  few  of  them, 
stunned  by  the  suddenness  of  their  extreme  poverty,  but  still 
proud  and  self-respecting,  emigrated  to  America  and  else 
where,  in  order  to  expiate,  forget,  make  an  honest  living, 
where  nobody  knew  who  they  had  been.  Once  in  a  while, 
among  humble  laborers,  you  find  men  who  have  seen  better 
times:  clean,  reserved,  dignified,  well  bred,  and  cultured,  they 
live  like  hermits,  spurned  by  their  companions,  alone  with 
their  spleen  and  regrets,  misunderstood  and  often  humiliated 
by  the  pretentious  natives,  who  judge  men  not  by  their  moral 
worth,  but  by  the  size  of  their  pocketbooks. 

Foreign  immigrants  generally  crowd  the  sections  of  cities 
called  the  slums,  living  in  poor  tenements,  in  half  dilapidated 
houses,  without  air,  without  light,  without  water,  near  rail 
road  tracks,  river  beds,  disreputable  resorts  of  the  lowest  kind. 
More  than  human  dwellings,  they  have  often  the  appearance 
of  beasts'  dens.  People  live  there  in  obscene  promiscuity.  In 
the  same  room,  where  man  and  wife  sleep  in  one  bed,  there 
are  several  cots  for  boarders.  Nine  or  ten  beds  in  a  room  are 
not  an  unfrequent  occurrence.  For  a  small  monthly  sum  men 
have  bed,  washing,  and  cooking;  and  sometimes  they  share 
the  wife  with  the  landlord.  Honor?  There  is  no  sentiment  of 
honor  for  people  who  worship  only  money,  no  matter  who  they 
are.  Sometimes,  jealousy  blinds  them  and  makes  them  com 
mit  murder.  Jealousy,  and  not  honor.  Women,  who  had  a 
remnant  of  self-respect,  and  refused  to  prostitute  themselves, 
once  in  a  while  killed ;  and  juries  in  several  parts  of  the  United 
States  acquitted  them.  Make  it  a  misdemeanor  to  keep  board 
ers  the  way  it  is  done  in  foreign  settlements,  and  crimes  of 
this  kind  will  become  a  thing  of  the  past.  But  the  picture  is 
not  complete.  Filthy  diseases  are  often  spread  to  the  whole 
household.  People  living  that  way  are  a  serious  danger  to  the 
health  of  whole  communities,  and  often  ruin,  on  account  of 
their  horrible  superstitions,  many  poor  children.  There  is  a 
hideous  superstition  common  to  the  low  classes  of  several 
countries,  that  sexual  diseases  and  syphilis  can  be  easily  healed 
by  communicating  them  to  unfortunate  small  girls.  And  the 
list  of  such  heinous  crimes  would  seem  appalling  to  the  statis 
tician,  if  he  could  get  it.  How  many  people  are  mistaken  for 
insane  for  similar  practices!  Even  my  late  friend  Lombroso 
mistook  them  for  unfortunate  victims  of  a  revolting  form  of 
insanity.  People  of  such  low  standard  of  morals — at  times 
more  deserving  of  pity  than  wrath — must  be  redeemed  in  spite 
of  themselves,  and  interference  with  the  work  of  social  better- 


60  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

ment  and  epuration,  should  not  be  tolerated,  no  matter  where 
it  comes  from.  I  have  visited,  studied,  observed,  investigat 
ed,  seven  different  settlements  of  seven  different  foreign  na 
tionalities.  It  is  true  that  I  have  found  some  of  the  same  re 
volting  features  among  natives  addicted  to  drink,  and  coming 
from  Anglo-Saxon,  Irish,  and  Dutch  parentage  and  ancestry. 
Unicuique  suum.  A  prominent  physician,  who  has  indulged 
in  studies  on  sociology  and  preventive  medicine,  stated  in  a 
pamphlet  read  in  a  foreign  medical  congress  that  the  United 
States  had  a  great  responsibility,  because  many  of  the  for 
eigners  who  come  here  in  excellent  health,  return  to  their  na 
tive  countries  with  tuberculosis,  dying  of  it,  and  communicat 
ing  it  to  communities  previously  free  of  the  scourge.  The 
phenomenon  is  true,  but  the  conclusions  and  the  comments  are 
erroneous.  The  author  of  the  pamphlet  was  praised  and 
knighted  by  the  government  of  his  native  country,  on  account 
of  the  defense  of  his  unfortunate  countrymen  against  a  nation 
which  sacrifices  in  cold  blood  and  for  greed  numberless  lives  of 
poor  immigrants.  I  have  an  idea — and  I  may  be,  so  far  as 
preventive  medicine  and  sociology  are  concerned,  a  little  more 
competent  than  the  illustrious  author  of  the  pamphlet  men 
tioned — that  the  real  responsibility  belongs  exactly  to  the  gov 
ernment  of  the  mother  country  of  the  immigrant  who  con 
tracted  the  tuberculosis.  The  United  States  is  not  responsible 
for  the  health  of  people  who  have  no  regard  for  themselves. 
Greed,  inordinate  thirst  for  saving  money,  miserly  habits 
only  are  responsible  for  the  phenomenon.  Many  of  the  men, 
who  go  back  with  tuberculosis,  in  order  to  accumulate  money 
for  the  reasons  given  above,  saved  the  nine-tenths  of  what  they 
made  living  in  filthy  and  crowded  surroundings,  buying 
spoiled  food,  practising  inexpensive  lewdness,  menacing  other 
people's  health,  without  being  in  the  least  danger  from  outside 
contagion.  And,  if  taken  ill  or  becoming  entangled  in  criminal 
prosecutions,  they  went  back  to  the  countries  of  their  birth 
poor  and  in  broken  health,  it  is  because  the  medical  and  legal 
sharks  of  their  own  nationalities  cleaned  their  pockets.  Pro 
fessional  parasitism  is  simply  revolting  in  foreign  settle 
ments.  Fakers,  who  advertise  extensively,  are  a  disgrace  to 
our  country  and  to  the  system  of  publicity  of  our  press,  which 
should  not  accept  advertising  unless  absolutely  honest  and  le 
gitimate.  And  yet,  I  have  found  that  there  is  not  a  faking  ad 
vertisement  intended  to  rob  foreigners  which  has  not  the 
criminal  connivance  of  men  of  the  very  nationalities  marked 
for  exploit.  But  professional  ethics  very  often  covers  a  multi 
tude  of  dreadful  sins.  A  large  percentage  of  tuberculosis  is 
due  to  syphilitic  contamination.  Often,  pathologists,  who  are 
hunting  for  the  bacillus  of  Koch,  should  look  for  the  spiro- 
ckoeta  pallida.  The  majority  of  foreign  women,  who  are 
treated  and  operated  for  gynecological  and  other  diseases, 
have  been  ruined  by  men  who  married  because  their  physicians 
assured  them  they  were  in  perfect  health. 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  61 

By  denouncing  the  traitors  of  foreign  countries,  I  do  not 
spare  the  rascals  who  were  born  in  America,  and  who  take 
special  delight  in  defiling  the  flag  of  the  United  States.  Wild 
hunting  after  money  is  unfortunately  a  peculiar  American 
disease ;  and  Dr.  Waite,  who  expiated  his  crime  in  the  electric 
chair,  symbolized  that  dreadful  form  of  insanity  of  which  can 
be  said :  Venenum  in  auro  bibitur. 

Who  is  the  high  school  boy  who  does  not  remember  the 
very  familiar  verse  of  Virgil : 

Quid  non  mortalia  pectora  cogis,  auri  sacra  fames? 
Lust  for  gold  induces  men  to  stop  at  nothing. 

X. 

In  recent  years  a  just  and  merciless  campaign  has  been 
waged  against  the  menace  to  our  peace  and  our  future  and  the 
disgrace  of  our  body  politic — the  hyphenated  citizenship.  Men 
in  politics  and  journalists  of  some  reputation  encouraged,  when 
it  was  to  their  advantage,  the  monstrosity;  but  now  have 
joined  in  the  thunder  of  protestation;  and  it  is  to  be  hoped 
that  they  are  sincere.  Selfish  politicians  are  seldom  sincere; 
they  take  advantage  of  everything,  and  with  the  same  light 
ness  of  heart  and  acrobatism  of  mind,  they  extol  to-day  what 
they  cursed  yesterday,  and  may  find  ridiculous  to-morrow 
what  seems  to-day  very  serious  and  of  capital  interest  to  the 
country.  The  hyphen  is  certainly  a  great  menace:  this  coun 
try  is  warming  in  her  very  bosom  the  venomous  snake  which 
will  later  put  in  jeopardy  her  precious  life.  The  unfortunate 
specimens  of  mankind  described  above,  revolting  as  they  are, 
should  be  pitied,  because  they  are  the  victims  of  an  order  of 
things  for  which  they  are  not  and  cannot  be  responsible.  Vic 
tims  of  the  infamy  of  governments  of  thieves,  and  scoundrels, 
who  robbed  them  of  what  is  the  common  property  of  all  men — 
the  land — they  have  fatally  become  corrupted  and  corruptors. 
May  God  stop  our  own  government  in  the  nefarious  work  of 
perpetuating  in  this  country  the  robberies  of  land,  which  have 
created  and  are  creating  monopolies  and  slavery  everywhere. 
America  has  produced  the  new  gospel  of  land  freedom — Pro 
gress  and  Poverty  of  Henry  George,  the  prophet  of  our  civili 
zation,  the  man  who  makes  complete  the  doctrine  of  democ 
racy,  which  Thomas  Jefferson  enunciated;  and  unless  the 
message  is  received  and  the  light  accepted,  we  may  go  to  per 
dition,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  we  carry  in  our  hands  our  sal 
vation.  "When  starvation,"  said  Henry  George,  "is  the  al 
ternative  to  the  use  of  land,  then  does  the  ownership  of  men 
involved  in  the  ownership  of  land  become  absolute.  Private 
ownership  of  land  is  the  nether  millstone.  Material  progress 
is  the  upper  millstone.  Between  them,  with  an  increasing 
pressure,  the  working  classes  are  being  ground.  Historically 
as  ethically,  private  property  in  land  is  robbery.  It  has  every- 


62  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

where  had  its  birth  in  war  and  conquest,  and  in  the  selfish 
use  which  the  cunning  have  made  of  superstition  and  law." 

In  the  American  commonwealth,  no  form  of  degradation 
and  slavery  should  exist;  the  very  shadow  of  treachery  and 
espionage  should  be  destroyed.  There  should  be  no  German 
towns,  Slavish  settlements,  Jewish  communities,  little  Italics, 
Chinatowns,  or  any  other  aggregation  of  people  of  foreign  race 
— united  in  tongue,  heart,  nationality,  and  traditions — in  the 
big  and  small  cities  of  the  United  States.  And  no  representa 
tives  of  foreign  governments  should  be  permitted  to  rule,  un 
der  any  excuse,  any  of  the  settlements,  to  meddle  in  our  affairs 
or  to  speculate,  in  violation  of  our  laws,  and  under  protection 
of  diplomatic  privileges,  which  constitute  the  most  dangerous 
and  infamous  of  all  smugglings.  A  foreign  representative  is 
a  guest  of  honor;  and  a  guest  should  be  a  perfect  gentleman, 
polite,  respectful,  discreet,  jealous  of  his  rights,  and  scrupulous 
in  the  performance  of  his  duties,  but,  above  all,  absolutely  in 
capable  of  minding  other  people's  business,  or  of  meddling  in 
the  management  of  his  host's  house.  When  a  guest  oversteps 
his  privileges,  and  becomes  inquisitive,  cumbersome,  untact- 
ful,  and  obnoxious,  he  is  politely  invited  to  depart.  Now,  how 
many  of  the  foreign  representatives  are  accustomed  to  keep 
within  the  bounds  of  gentlemanship  and  honor?  Have  we  not 
been  offered  the  unmistakable  proofs  that  Germany,  in  order 
to  subjugate,  without  any  upheaval,  Brazil,  the  Argentine  Re 
public,  and  other  South  American  nations,  has  been  busy  for 
years  in  colonizing  them  according  to  a  system  unknown  to  the 
old  Romans?  Had  the  experiment  not  been  disturbed  by  the 
complications  of  the  present  war,  they  would  have  slowly  but 
surely  undermined  the  power  of  the  United  States  of  America, 
and  put  us  in  a  state  of  political  and  economical  slavery,  with 
out  us  suspecting  it.  We  have  been  sufficiently  informed  of 
the  deeds  of  the  Germans  and  the  Austrians.  Had  conditions 
been  reversed,  we  would  have  discovered  that  the  representa 
tives  of  other  governments  we  now  call  allies  have  been  less 
desperate,  but  no  better.  After  all,  you  cannot  make  a  bulldog 
out  of  a  pointer,  or  a  dove  out  of  a  hawk. 

Foreign  settlements  in  our  midst,  with  their  organiza 
tions,  business,  newspapers,  government  officials,  look  like 
states  within  states — San  Marino  in  Italy,  or  Andorra  in 
Spain.  Remaining  the  way  they  are,  they  will  never  become 
good  Americans,  or  be  in  sympathy  with  our  country,  which 
feeds  them,  as  the  body  nourishes  the  malignant  tumor, 
which  will  in  time  poison  and  kill  it.  Preventive  medicine 
shows  how  to  avoid  diseases  and  epidemics.  Political  and  so 
cial  hygiene  should  show  how  to  preserve  a  state  from  dele 
terious  infiltrations,  corruption,  and  disintegration.  The 
average  man  cannot  jump  from  slavery  into  freedom  without 
losing  his  balance.  A  child  must  be  watched  and  guided  in  his 
first  steps.  What  Dixon  says  in  "The  Clansman"  is  in  part 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  63 

true,  and  applies  to  every  race  which  has  not  known  the  bless 
ing  of  a  constitutional  government.  Russia  is  to-day  a  very 
eloquent  example  of  it.  A  dog,  so  far  as  he  remains  a  dog, 
cannot  live  without  a  master;  and  a  slave,  if  good,  is  almost 
like  a  dog.  You  cannot  expect  much  of  him,  if  you  have  not 
restored  him  to  the  dignity  of  man.  Education  alone,  as  it  is 
believed  by  good  men,  who  are  working  under  the  delusion 
that  evening  schools  will  solve  the  problem,  will  be  of  little  or 
no  avail  if  the  immigrant  is  not  given  a  man's  conscience.  The 
unfortunate  creatures  who  come  from  oppressed,  downtrod 
den,  poverty-stricken  countries,  blessed  by  the  system  of  land 
spoliations  mentioned,  are  slaves,  even  if  slavery  does  not  exist 
in  the  statute  books  of  the  nations  they  come  from.  Take,  for 
instance,  the  poor  peasants  of  Russia,  Austria,  Poland,  the 
Balkans,  Greece,  Spain,  Italy,  and,  to  some  extent,  Germany, 
Denmark,  Sweden,  Norway,  Holland!  Everybody  knows  the 
conditions  of  the  largest  portion  of  Ireland,  made  worse  by 
the  nefarious  interference  of  the  Church,  which  is  obdurate  in 
forgetting  that  temporal  and  spiritual  affairs  cannot  blend. 
And  this  applies  to  all  religions  and  to  all  people.  England, 
in  spite  of  her  wonderful  political  freedom,  is  she  not  a  curse 
to  civilization  with  her  lords  possessing  everything,  even  the 
land  on  which  London  is  built,  and  all  the  population  practic 
ally  reduced  to  the  condition  of  tenants?  Perhaps,  of  all  na 
tions  in  the  world,  none  has  more  crimes  to  expiate  than  Eng 
land.  From  William  of  Orange  down,  thefts  of  land  on  a 
colossal  scale  have  been  perpetrated.  There  is  nothing  more 
monstrous  than  English  oligarchy.  The  Acts  of  Enclosure  of 
Commons  are  the  most  infamous  form  of  parliamentary  rob 
bery.  The  origin  and  the  history  of  the  Bank  of  England  are 
a  moral  monstrosity.  Child  slavery — infamous  and  bloody  in 
all  European  manufactories — was  so  terrible  in  England  that 
Sir  Robert  Peel  had  to  introduce  his  famous  bill,  which  was 
partly  a  reparation.  No  justice  will  come  out  of  the  present  war 
if  the  British  Lords  will  not  make  restitution  of  lands,  or  adopt 
the  single  tax  system.  May  the  Lord  open  the  eyes  of  Amer 
icans,  so  that  they  will  cease  once  and  forever  from  creating 
monopolies,  and  keep  away  from  the  frightful  system  of  land 
robbery  of  their  British  ancestors !  We  condemn  the  material 
istic  conception  of  history  of  the  socialists  of  the  so-called  sci 
entific  school,  and  the  reader  knows  what  we  think  of  the 
moral  worth  of  Karl  Marx;  but  his  book,  "Das  Kapital," 
should  be  studied  by  the  student  of  social  problems.  Marxism 
is  by  no  means  socialism.  A  man  can  be  a  Marxist  and  a  par 
tisan  of  any  form  of  government — republican,  constitutional, 
or  autocratic.  I  convinced  Jaures  of  this  truth  nearly  thirty- 
years  ago,  in  spite  of  the  protests  of  Jules  Guesde.  And  in  an 
address  I  had  the  honor  to  deliver  a  dozen  years  ago  before  the 
Erie  Press  Club,  I  tried  to  point  out  what  real  socialism  is,  and 
I  observed  that  if  socialism,  is  a  just  and  lofty  aspiration  to 


64  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

better  human  conditions,  every  good  hearted  and  sound  mind 
ed  man  is  a  socialist,  no  matter  whether  he  is  a  Republican 
like  ex-President  Roosevelt  or  a  Democrat  like  President  Wil 
son.  No  matter  what  our  political  affiliations,  if  we  are  famil 
iar  with  history  and  economics,  we  can  subscribe  to  the  follow 
ing  words  of  Karl  Marx :  "If  money/'  according  to  Marie  Au- 
gier,  'comes  into  the  world  with  a  congenital  bloodstain  on  one 
cheek/  capital  comes  dripping,  from  head  to  foot,  from  every 
pore,  with  blood  and  dirt." 

Switzerland  is  in  a  peculiar  —  and  yet  happy  —  predica 
ment  with  her  three  parts :  French,  in  love  with  France ;  Ital 
ian,  in  spiritual  communion  with  Italy;  and  German,  in  sym 
pathy  with  Germany,  so  much  in  sympathy  with  her  that  she 
has  been  helping  the  kaiser  from  the  first  day  of  the  war,  and 
keeps  in  Zurich,  Basel,  and  Berne  a  regular  general  staff  of 
followers  of  Stieber.  France  is  the  only  country  in  Europe 
where  the  peasants  and  the  wbrkingmen  are  not  entirely  de 
pendents  ;  and  the  magnificent  heroism  of  her  soldiers,  and  the 
sublime  patriotism  of  her  civil  population — women,  old  folks, 
youngsters — show  that  she  is  one  of  the  very  few  countries  in 
the  world  with  a  civic  and  national  conscience.  Her  traitors 
are  the  exception  and  not  the  rule — mostly  socialists  like  Cail- 
laux — and  when  apprehended  and  convicted,  she  does  not  play 
with  them,  giving  light  sentences  and  pleasant  promenades  to 
Atlanta,  Georgia,  like  America,  but  she  delivers  them  to  a  fir 
ing  squad.  No  pity  for  the  cobra-de-capello.  If  France 
would  cease  once  and  forever  to  be  an  aristocratic  republic, 
and  be  really  a  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and 
for  the  people,  what  a  glory  to  her,  what  a  pride  to  mankind ! 
A  republic  with  princes,  dukes,  and  earls,  intermingled  with 
socialists,  Orleansists,  and  Bonapartists,  no  matter  how  glori 
ous  and  lofty,  seems  an  absurdity.  The  cross  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor  ought  to  be  enough.  It  is  the  only  decoration  and  the 
only  nobility  of  which  any  man  of  principles  and  honor  can  be 
proud. 

It  has  been  said  already  that  the  unfortunate  men  men 
tioned  above  were  slaves  in  fact,  if  not  in  name,  in  the  coun 
tries  they  came  from.  In  order  to  buy  their  tickets  to  Amer 
ica,  they  had  to  borrow  money  from  vile  speculators — the  most 
vulgar  types  of  uncircumcised  Shylocks — who  go  to  mass  every 
morning,  carry  a  rosary  in  their  pockets,  and  cross  themselves 
if  they  hear  a  profane  word :  in  spite  of  the  law,  they  charge 
interest  at  the  rate  of  from  two  to  five  hundred  per  cent. 
So  far  as  Italy  is  concerned,  I  have  documents  in  my  posses 
sion.  This  is  not  an  exaggeration.  And  they  have  to  pay  a 
fat  tax  on  emigration  to  the  government,  too. 

Is  there  any  surprise  if  they  come  here  only  to  make 
money,  in  order  to  go  back,  and  become  in  their  turn  oppres 
sors?  And  they  play  into  the  hands  of  their  governments  in 
the  hope  that  upon  their  return  they  will  be  treated  with 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  65 

marks  of  respect.  Their  resentment,  hatred,  accursed  greed 
for  gold,  made  of  them  the  miserable  human  rags  we  see  in 
the  crowded  boarding  houses,  in  the  tenements,  in  the  foreign 
settlements  of  big  and  small  cities.  Their  servile  minds  and 
hearts  put  them  at  the  mercy  of  adventurers  and  wretches, 
who  are  mistaken  by  the  superficial  American  observer  for 
leaders.  Moral  lepers  cannot  lead  in  anything  but  cowardly 
criminality.  While  the  poor  creatures  occasionally  are  caught 
and  pay  the  penalty,  they  harvest  the  ripe  and  luscious  fruits 
of  white  slavery,  burglary,  blackmail,  counterfeiting,  gamb 
ling,  conspiracies,  plotting,  spying.  I  know  of  an  owner 
of  a  little  jewelry  store,  which  does  not  give  him  twenty  dol 
lars  a  week  at  the  best,  who  has  saved  in  less  than  two  years 
seventeen  thousand  dollars  in  cold  cash.  Somebody,  who  is 
in  a  position  to  know,  tells  me  that  a  man  from  Canada  brings 
him  every  week  large  quantities  of  silver  dust,  for  which  he 
pays  little  and  sells  to  a  big  Buffalo  firm,  realizing  large  pro 
fits.  A  certain  business  man  came  a  few  years  ago  from  Italy, 
starving  and  in  rags.  He  has  made  a  fortune.  I  know  that 
he  is  not  only  the  confidential  agent  of  counterfeiters  and 
black  handers,  in  whose  interest  he  has  enlisted  the  services 
of  certain  misfit  representatives  of  the  law;  but  he  has  been 
and  is  a  notorious  scamp  in  the  service  of  the  German  spy  sys 
tem.  His  chief  occupation  has  been  that  of  plotting  against 
the  men  who  have  spent  noble  and  useful  lives,  preaching  the 
gospel  of  freedom.  And  yet,  men  like  these  are  very  popular 
among  the  great  and  boisterous  patriots,  who  worship  no 
other  flag  than  the  American  banknote.  I  have  a  list  of  them, 
properly  indexed,  for  future  reference.  For  patriotic  reasons 
of  the  highest  order,  I  have  warned  men  in  responsible  posi 
tions  to  keep  away  from  them:  but  I  have  been  looked  upon 
as  a  crank.  My  insanity  is  my  love  for  America,  my  firm  and 
radiant  belief  in  the  wonderful  mission  of  the  United  States 
in  the  history  of  the  world.  I  sincerely  love  the  poor  creatures 
I  am  describing  as  they  are.  I  have  been  among  them,  divid 
ing  with  them  my  bread,  and  trying  to  show  them  the  right 
path  to  follow.  But  the  masses  are  often  carried  astray  by 
false  gods.  If  I  desire  with  all  my  heart  to  see  them  good,  in 
telligent,  bona  fide  citizens  of  this  country,  it  is  for  their  own 
welfare.  This  is  the  land  promised  by  God:  why  should  peo 
ple  try  to  go  back  into  bondage  and  affliction? 

Somebody  has  suggested  to  me  that  people  coming  from 
other  nations  cannot  live  forever.  Their  children,  being  most 
ly  born  in  America,  will  be — he  insists — good  citizens.  And 
this  is  a  delusion  and  a  blunder,  a  calamitous  delusion,  and 
the  worst  of  all  blunders.  American  schools — no  matter  what 
the  pretenses  of  American  educators — exercise  the  mind  and 
develop  the  body;  but  unfortunately  are  no  builders  of  char 
acter.  Children  become  very  efficient  in  mental  arithmetic, 
enjoy  calisthenics,  and  learn  to  play  football  and  basket-ball. 


66  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

But  they  are  not  taught  discipline,  politeness,  kindness,  regard 
for  others,  respect  for  older  people.  In  order  to  build  charac 
ter,  the  primary  school  and  home  must  proceed  hand  in  hand. 
No  teacher — no  matter  how  good  and  well-meaning  and  pains 
taking — can  accomplish  much  in  this  direction,  if  his  or  her 
efforts  are  not  encouraged  by  a  hearty  cooperation  of  parents, 
and  especially  of  mothers,  who  are  the  first  and  most  useful 
builders  of  character.  The  first  impressions  are  never  for 
gotten.  My  modest,  but  careful,  impartial,  and  persistent  ob 
servations,  have  shown  with  mathematical  certainty  that  the 
children  of  the  immigrants  mentioned  seldom  become  useful 
citizens;  with  very  few  exceptions,  they  add  to  the  vices  of 
their  parents,  and  of  their  environment,  the  vices  of  the  na 
tives  of  the  country.  The  good  qualities  of  both  do  not  seem 
to  impress  them  at  all.  A  blending  of  stupendous  vices,  they 
grow  into  lives  of  mere  bestiality,  when  they  do  not  become  a 
menace  to  society,  and  the  object  of  public  charge.  The  gun 
ners,  who  left  their  exuberant  youth  in  the  electric  chair  for 
the  murder  of  Rosenthal,  the  gambler,  were  an  illustration 
of  the  children  of  foreign  settlements ;  and  the  law,  instead  of 
punishing  itself,  because  it  had  been  incapable  of  preventing 
their  crimes,  executed  them. 

Schools,  as  they  are  conducted,  do  not  improve  things. 
The  children  of  the  Russians,  the  Germans,  the  Italians,  the 
Hebrews,  the  Austrians,  the  Polish,  the  Greeks,  etc.,  unless 
their  parents  are  people  of  refinement  or  naturally  and  excep 
tionally  virtuous,  become  monstrous  blendings  of  the  bad  traits 
of  the  different  races  among  which  they  grow.  I  have  observed, 
in  a  certain  section  of  Pittsburgh,  Pennsylvania,  inhabited 
mostly  by  Hebrews  and  Italians,  Hebrew  children  with  the 
worst  characteristics  of  the  Italian  slums,  and  Italian  children 
with  the  worst  traits  of  the  Jewish  rabble.  When,  referring 
to  a  boy  of  a  foreign  settlement  who  has  made  good,  news 
papers  and  educators  extol  the  race  they  came  from  and  the 
environments  where  they  grew,  they  utter  one  of  the  most 
typical  conventional  lies  so  genially  illustrated  by  Max 
Nordau. 

The  entrance  of  the  United  States  into  the  war  has  proved 
the  truth  of  my  contention.  Make  careful  researches  in  the 
settlements  typically  German.  You  find  that  the  ones  who 
have  more  bitterly  denounced  the  American  government  and 
the  more  enthusiastically  upheld  the  kaiser  and  his  allies  are 
not  the  old  German  residents,  but  their  children,  mostly  born 
and  grown  up  in  the  United  States.  I  have  investigated  and 
studied  the  phenomenon  directly,  persistently,  and  patiently. 
Pointing  out  facts  of  this  nature,  I  have  not  the  slightest  inten 
tion  to  denounce,  belittle,  or  offend  anybody:  my  only  aim  is 
to  show  the  right  path  out  of  wilderness  and  danger.  First  of 
all,  no  foreign  settlements  should  be  allowed;  second,  the  im 
migrants  should  be  rescued  in  spite  of  themselves;  third,  the 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  67 

work  of  Americanization  should  be  carefully  planned  and  sys 
tematically  and  skilfully  carried  out  by  men  of  great  experi 
ence  and  knowledge,  who  are,  more  than  schoolmasters,  psy 
chologists,  sociologists,  philanthropists,  absolutely  familiar 
with  the  needs,  the  conditions,  and  the  peculiarities  of  the 
races  they  have  to  reach.  Incompetent  men,  ward  heelers, 
unprincipled  speculators  of  patriotism,  ignoramuses  full  of 
false  pretenses,  do  often  irremediable  harm.  The  late  Jacob 
Riis,  one  of  the  purest  souls  God  ever  created,  often,  on  his 
way  to  the  New  York  Evening  Sun,  stopped  to  see  me  at  the 
editorial  rooms  of  "II  Progresso  I talo- Americano,"  to  talk  over 
some  of  the  splendid  things  he  intended  to  do  among  the  people 
of  the  settlements.  Once  I  said  to  him  that  the  most  important 
and  useful  work  would  have  been  the  destruction  of  the  slums 
and  the  abolishment  of  the  settlements,  a  real  "sventramento," 
as  they  used  to  say  in  my  native  Naples.  Richard  Harding 
Davis,  who  happened  to  hear  my  remark,  said  that  I  was  the 
most  radical  of  all  anarchists.  And  the  nickname  stuck  for 
some  time,  and  was  perhaps  the  origin  of  a  famous  and 
very  inaccurate  article  in  the  New  York  Herald,  where  I  was 
described  as  the  pontiff  of  anarchism.  I  was  at  the  time  sec 
retary  of  "Federation  of  Thought  and  Action,"  which  was 
working  incessantly  for  an  Italian  Republic,  and  for  a  Repub 
lican  Federation  of  European  States.  As  my  colleagues  in  the 
stupendous  task,  the  New  York  Herald  was  kind  enough  to 
give  me,  among  others,  Alexander  Berkman,  whom  I  had  never 
seen,  and  Emma  Goldman,  who  was  once  introduced  to  me  by 
a  New  York  civil  engineer,  Signer  Caggiano.  I  kneeled  before 
the  pictures  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Thomas  Jefferson,  Henry 
George,  Mazzini,  and  Garibaldi,  asking  of  them  if  they  had 
ever  heard  of  myself  betraying  their  immortal  teachings. 

Every  immigrant  should  be  granted  a  temporary  permit 
of  residence,  as  it  is  customary  in  Switzerland,  where  laborers 
go  during  certain  seasons  to  return  to  their  homes  as  soon  as 
their  work  is  done.  The  ones  who  intend  to  settle  in  the  coun 
try  and  express  an  intention  to  become  citizens,  should  be  by 
the  government  judiciously  and  fatherly  distributed  in  the 
various  agricultural  and  industrial  centers.  I  do  not  like  to 
be  misunderstood.  I  had  and  have  no  sympathy  for  the  alien 
and  sedition  laws,  which  were  adopted  in  America  during  the 
presidency  of  John  Adams.  Jeffersonian  Republicanism,  as 
typified  by  Abraham  Lincoln,  should  be  restored  as  the  perma 
nent  policy  of  the  country,  and  as  a  model  to  all  nations  lean 
ing  toward  democracy. 

Give  a  family  of  peasants  an  extension  of  good,  tillable 
land,  irrigated,  fertile,  attractive ;  make  them  cultivate  it ;  ex 
tend  them  the  blessings  of  appropriate  rural  schools ;  free  them 
from  the  parasitism  and  crookedness  of  their  countrymen; 
give  them  the  benefit  of  rural  credit,  so  useful  and  wonderful 
in  results  in  farming  centers ;  be  their  friends  instead  of  their 


68  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

aggravators ;  and  you  will  make  of  them  good  neighbors,  good 
citizens,  and  good  Americans.  Doing  so,  you  will  build  up  the 
character  of  their  children,  who  will  be  the  citizens  of  to-mor 
row  ;  and  awake  in  their  hearts  the  love  for  the  farm,  deserted 
and  even  cursed,  on  account  of  the  exactions,  aggravations, 
spoliations  of  fiscality,  which  seems  to  begin  to  Russianize  even 
the  free  soil  of  America.  Legislators,  who  are  paying  more 
attention  to  industrial  than  to  rural  centers,  are  blindly  pre 
paring  the  ruin  of  the  country !  The  greatness  of  a  nation  de 
pends  more  on  the  austere  virtue  of  the  farmer  than  on  the 
brilliant  frivolity  of  the  city  dweller.  Culture  and  agriculture 
are  the  pillars  of  a  sound  state.  Rome  prospered  beyond  the 
fondest  hopes  of  her  citizens,  and  produced  Cincinnatus,  while 
she  remained  a  community  of  farmers.  When  she  was  lured 
by  the  artificial  life  and  magnificently  empty  splendor  of 
decadent  Greek  civilization  and  perversion,  her  ruin  started. 
Julius  Caesar  paved  the  way  for  Romulus  Augustulus.  How 
true  is  the  observation  of  Horace  that  enslaved  Greece  con 
quered  Rome!  Semiramis  and  Cleopatra  survived  their  and 
their  country's  ruin.  Aspasia  and  Phryne,  from  prostrated 
Greece,  passed  into  Rome.  Lewdness  and  greed,  which  de 
stroyed  Hebrew  civilization,  will  destroy  any  nation,  no  matter 
how  powerful,  if  not  banished. 

You  may  find  sporadic  vice  in  farming  communities.  Per 
version  is  the  rule  in  cities.  New  York  is  almost  on  the  same 
level  with  Vienna — the  most  corrupted  city  in  the  world — Ber 
lin,  Petrograd,  Brussels,  London,  and  Paris,  before  the  war. 
France  has  been  purified  since  the  war  gave  her  such  a  bath 
of  red  blood  of  heroes.  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  have  disap 
peared.  Sappho  has  returned  to  Greece.  De  Sade  and  Masoch 
have  gone  to  Austria.  Joan  of  Are  is  the  pride  of  the  country. 

Farms  in  many  of  the  European  countries  have  become 
a  burden  to  the  tillers  of  the  soil.  Taxations,  government 
spoliations  of  all  kinds,  usury,  calamities,  poor  years,  have 
disgusted  the  farmers,  who  have  emigrated  to  the  cities  or  to 
foreign  lands,  in  quest  of  better  returns  and  more  human 
treatment.  What  has  happened  in  other  countries  will  hap 
pen  to  America,  if  our  blind  politicians  do  not  open  their  eyes, 
and  come  to  better  counsel.  In  many  farming  communities 
the  exodus  has  started  already.  Unless  you  make  the  soil  at 
tractive  and  productive  and  farming  prosperous,  famine  and 
moral  decay  will  be  the  result. 

By  diverting  foreign  immigration  to  farms,  you  will  ben 
efit  immensely  the  immigrant,  and  render  a  great  service  to 
the  country.  But  you  cannot  do  it,  unless  you  use  wisdom,  and 
you  have  the  courage,  the  determination  and  the  patriotism  to 
destroy  the  infamous  monopolies,  which  are  dishonoring  the 
commonwealth.  The  system  of  lordism  'without  coronets 
should  come  to  an  end.  No  man  should  be  allowed  to  own 
more  than  a  moderate  extension  of  land.  And  all  land  which 


Glgliotti — Cor  Mundi  69 

is  not  improved  and  is  kept  just  for  parasitical  speculation 
should  be  expropriated  without  any  regard  and  without  com 
pensation.  Remember  the  deep  philosophy  of  the  parable  of 
Jesus,  and  of  the  punishment  of  the  servant,  who  buried  the 
money,  and  left  it  unproductive.  All  immense  tracts  of  land, 
acquired  for  little  or  nothing,  or  obtained  through  robbery 
encouraged  by  political  looseness  and  corruption,  should  be 
unmercifully  expropriated,  and  given  to  the  willing  and  to  the 
industrious.  Single  tax  will  be  the  great  remedy.  By  adopt 
ing  single  tax — which  must  be  modified  in  industrial  and  com 
mercial  centers  in  order  to  properly  solve  new  problems  which 
escaped  the  great  mind  of  Henry  George  —  the  legislator 
will  secure  a  great  and  glorious  era  of  farming  prosperity. 
Unless  big  industrial  and  commercial  enterprises  are  nation 
alized  they  must  pay  a  convenient  and  proportionate  share 
of  government  expenses  in  taxation,  without  enslaving  the 
wage  earners,  or  they  will  become  worse  monopolies  than  they 
have  been  and  that  the  large  and  unscrupulous  profits  of  war 
have  a  natural  tendency  to  make.  In  a  free,  modern,  progres 
sive  country,  no  man  should  be  allowed  to  concentrate  in  his 
hands  too  much  wealth  and  too  much  power.  Accumulation 
of  wealth  in  a  few  hands  is  worse  than  czarism.  Big  inter 
ests  are  as  dangerous  to  the  security  of  nations  as  Prussian 
militarism  and  British  control  of  the  seas  are  to  the  peace  of 
mankind.  Socialism,  as  it  is  generally  understood,  is  far  from 
our  minds,  because  we  do  not  like  to  see  civil  life  transformed 
into  a  machine,  and  we  absolutely  agree  with  many  of  the  ar 
guments  of  Yves  Guyot  used  in  his  old  but  golden  book,  "So 
cialistic  Tyranny."  One  of  the  most  disheartening  spectacles 
in  history  is  the  communism  of  Sparta.  Individualism,  prop 
erly  understood  and  developed,  shorn  of  selfishness  and 
spurred  by  noble  ambitions  and  emulations,  is  a  blessing  to 
mankind,  because  it  is  the  motive  power  of  progress.  When 
man  becom.es  an  automaton,  life  will  be  no  more  worth  living. 
Heart's  bravery,  which  gives  so  magnificent  examples  to  ad 
mire  and  emulate,  disappears.  And  heart's  bravery  does  not 
reason,  does  not  waver,  but  goes  straight,  blindly,  as  swiftly 
as  lightning,  where  the  cry  of  the  dying  comes  from.  Indi 
vidualism  has  moved  the  generous  people  of  the  United  States 
to  send  immediate  help  to  communities  visited  by  public  ca 
lamities.  Collectivism  has  made  Russia  the  horrible  Bolsheviki 
marsh  it  is  now.  Individualism,  had  sent  our  relief  to  Belgium 
and  Serbia  and  ambulances  and  nurses  and  physicians  galore 
to  bleeding  Europe  long  before  we  had  any  idea  Teutonic  in 
famy  would  compel  our  peaceful  nation  to  enter  the  war. 

While  the  rural  immigrant  must  be  directed  to  the  farms, 
the  industrial  part  of  immigration  should  be  distributed  ju 
diciously  among  manufacturing  centers.  The  blind,  selfish, 
and  often  ignorant  exponents  of  a  certain  kind  of  organized 
labor — who  are  responsible  for  many  blunders  in  immigration 


70  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

legislation,  like  the  stupid  Burnett  law — do  not  seem  to  real 
ize  that  the  unmerciful  competition  does  not  come  from  skilled 
labor,  but  from  peasant  invasion  of  factories  and  industrial 
plants.  With  the  prevailing  American  industrial  system,  a 
man,  who  has  only  been  familiar  with  pick,  shovel,  spade,  fork, 
and  plow,  can  become  a  machine  operator  in  a  very  short 
time. 

Only  a  slow,  intelligent,  and  persistent  process  of  assimi 
lation  can  make  of  the  average  foreign  immigrant  a  good, 
faithful,  useful  citizen.  Some  of  the  most  typical  American 
families  were,  only  one  or  two  generations  ago,  British,  Ger 
man,  Italian,  Swede,  French,  Russian,  or  Austrian.  But  they 
went  upon  their  arrival  to  live  in  strictly  American  communi 
ties,  where  they  acquired  the  habits,  the  manners,  the  tastes, 
the  ways  of  thinking  of  the  new  environment.  Many  inter 
married  with  Americans.  Would  you  imagine  that  such  a 
splendid  example  of  American  womanhood,  Ida  M.  Tarbell, 
comes  from  Italian  stock?  Her  ancestors  were  Italian,  and 
settled  on  a  farm  in  Erie  County,  and  among  their  new  rela 
tions  are  people  by  name  of  McCullough.  Tarabelli  was  their 
original  name.  I  could  mention  names  galore.  The  process 
of  assimilation  is  an  easy  one,  if  properly  understood  and 
applied.  Theodore  Roosevelt,  the  greatest  living  exponent  of 
Americanism,  the  man  who  symbolizes  the  race  and  its 
achievements,  comes  from  genuine  and  typical  Dutch  and  Ger 
man  ancestry,  thoroughly  Americanized.  But  General  Sigel 
remained  German,  in  spite  of  his  gallant  participation  in  the 
Civil  War,  as  Italian  through  and  through  remained  till  he 
breathed  his  last  that  other  famous  Civil  War  veteran,  General 
Luigi  Palma  di  Cesnola,  director  of  the  Metropolitan  Museum 
of  Art  in  New  York.  William  Waldorf  Astor,  in  spite  of  the 
immense  obligations  his  ancestors  owed  to  the  United  States, 
had  in  his  blood  a  pronounced  dislike  for  America  and  Amer 
icanism,  which  had  been  very  often  shown  by  other  members 
of  his  family,  especially  a  departed  lady,  who  introduced  into 
a  certain  artificial  set  the  exaggerated  exclusivism  of  British 
nobility  and  the  strange  snobbism  of  the  upstart.  In  years 
gone  by,  when  I  had  time  to  indulge  in  studies  on  American 
society,  I  had  many  moments  of  real  merriment  at  the  expense 
of  some  of  the  so-called  four  hundred,  and  some  of  the  people 
who  had  been  entertained  at  Newport,  and  who  had  come 
from  Europe  on  matrimonial  expeditions,  were  among  the 
more  active  in  caricaturing  them.  Richard  Croker,  the  former 
czar  of  Tammany  Hall,  remained  Irish  to  the  core,  as  British 
remained,  in  spite  of  the  vastness  of  the  fortune  acquired  in 
the  United  States,  Andrew  Carnegie.  Why?  Because  they 
lived,  no  matter  how  active  their  participation  in  American 
life,  as  strangers  among  strangers. 

If  assimilation  is  impossible  in  countries  governed  by 
tyrannical  monarchies  and  empires,  it  is  easy  in  free  nations. 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  71 

I  don't  know  of  better  Britishers  than  the  Rossettis  of  Eng 
land.  French,  Germans,  and  Italians  live  happily  together  in 
Switzerland.  Malta  has  been  easily  assimilated  by  the  British 
government.  Nice,  Savoy,  Corsica  have  cheerfully  become 
French.  But  Alsace-Lorraine  has  never  been  satisfied  under 
German  rule,  and  the  Italians  of  Trento,  Trieste,  Istria,  Dal- 
mazia,  will  never  rest  while  they  remain  under  Austrian  rule. 
Races  and  nationalities  can  be  blended  and  transformed  in 
America,  because  the  pursuit  of  happiness  is  a  task  common 
to  all  in  our  country.  But,  of  course,  no  assimilation  is  pos 
sible,  when  the  nuisance  of  foreign  settlements  is  maintained. 
Take  the  Hebrews.  Those  among  them  who  live  scattered, 
away  from  their  typical  settlements,  have  become  sincerely 
American,  and  no  restoration  of  the  Jewish  nation  in  Pales 
tine  could  induce  them  to  leave  the  United  States.  The  mis 
sionary  and  prophetic  activities  of  that  modern  Moses  of  Zion 
ism,  the  late  Theodore  Herzl,  author  of  "Der  Judenstaat," 
will  never  impress  or  attract  them.  But  those  who  remain  in 
their  own  typical  settlements,  and  speak,  pray,  and  think  in 
their  own  language,  will  never  become  good  Americans,  no 
matter  how  many  representatives  they  may  be  able  to  send  to 
city  halls,  county  courts,  legislatures,  and  Congress.  Even  a 
lofty  man,  like  Judge  Brandeis,  becomes  unconsciously  par 
tial,  when  he  has  to  decide  about  that  typical  pair  of  anar 
chistic  disturbers,  Alexander  Berkman  and  Emma  Goldman, 
who  are  Hebrews  and  Russians. 

Of  all  influences,  which  keep  foreign  to  our  institutions 
even  naturalized  inhabitants  of  foreign  settlements,  and  make 
of  them,  if  the  occasion  arises,  alien  enemies,  the  Church  is 
not  the  least ;  the  Church  naturally  which  holds  services  in  the 
language  of  the  particular  communities.  Strange  as  it  may 
seem  to  the  simple  minded  American  reader,  foreign  govern 
ments  consider  churches,  where  the  teaching  and  the  preach 
ing  is  done  in  their  own  languages,  as  a  part  of  their  "sphere 
of  influence,"  which  in  diplomatic  parlance  means  nationalistic 
propaganda,  control,  and  benevolent,  but  not  less  dangerous, 
espionage.  Everybody  knows  that  missionaries  were  always 
employed  by  governments  to  prepare  the  way  for  peaceful  or 
violent  invasion  of  other  people's  lands.  But  how  many  know 
that  foreign  governments  give  financial  help  to  churches,  in 
order  to  maintain  schools  and  services  in  their  own  languages  ? 
And  yet,  priests  and  ministers  of  religion,  who  more  persist 
ently  carry  on  this  work  of  undermining  our  institutions,  are 
loved,  welcomed,  honored  by  selfish  politicians  and  blind  public 
officials. 

Men  should  not  be  kept  down  on  account  of  race  or  color ; 
but  race  or  color  should  not  entitle  anybody  to  special  treat 
ment  and  privileges.  Let  all  cults  and  schools  and  meetings 
employ  the  language  of  the  country.  A  common  language  is 
the  foundation  of  nationality.  Quebec  will  never  be  an  in- 


72  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

tegral  part  of  Canada  while  language  and  traditions  keep  alive 
the  old  conflict  between  French  and  British  habits,  interests, 
longings,  and  incompatibilities.  Assimilation  of  the  different 
races  and  peoples,  which  form  the  American  Commonwealth, 
is  a  necessity,  if  our  country  has  to  live,  lead  the  world,  and 
shine  in  a  firmament  of  glory.  The  conflicting  nationalities 
must  be  blended  in  a  very  harmonious  body,  social  and  politic, 
which  will  be  our  own  blessing,  and  the  admiration  and  in 
spiration  of  mankind.  Education  is  necessary.  Schools  are 
indispensable.  But  education  and  schools  will  make  things 
worse,  if  character  is  not  properly  built.  A  criminal,  able  to 
read  and  write,  is  much  more  dangerous  than  an  illiterate  one. 
The  criminal  of  finished  education  is  the  most  dangerous  crea 
ture  in  God's  world.  An  illiterate  Stieber  would  have  been 
useless  to  Pangermanism  and  its  prophets,  Friedrich  Wilhelm 
and  Bismarck.  Hindenburg,  Mackensen,  Ludendorf,  Von  Tir- 
pitz,  Conrad,  Enver  Bey  are  brigands  of  education  and  refine 
ment.  If  Pancho  Villa  had  received  half  of  their  education  and 
opportunities,  he  would  have  conquered  the  world.  But  I  real 
ize  that  by  having  called  them  brigands,  I  have  offended  the 
memory  of  Fra  Diavolo.  I  apologize. 

Take  good  care  of  the  immigrants.  They  may  carry  in 
their  bosom  the  best  hopes  of  the  country.  The  most  unfor 
tunate  of  them  all  can  become  the  father  of  a  future  President. 
Mr.  Nannetti,  son  of  Italian  immigrants,  was  one  of  the  best 
lord  mayors  the  city  of  Dublin  ever  had.  Benjamin  Disraeli, 
the  famous  British  statesman,  was  the  son  of  Venetian  Jews, 
who  would  never  had  dreamed  that  their  child  was  going  to 
be  Lord  Beaconsfield.  Signor  Pellegrini,  former  president  of 
the  Argentine  Republic,  was  the  son  of  a  poor  Italian  cobbler. 
The  ancestry  of  the  Vanderbilts,  the  Astors,  and  many  of  the 
foremost  American  families,  was  extremely  humble.  The 
New  York  City  Directory  for  1786  shows  that  Oliver  Vander- 
)t>ilt  had  a  shoe  repairing  shop  at  No.  4  Water  Street,  and  that 
John  Jacob  Astor  kept  a  second  hand  store  close  by.  Who  were 
the  parents  of  Abraham  Lincoln?  By  solving  properly  the 
problem  of  immigration,  and  by  creating  a  citizenship  loyal, 
honest,  patriotic,  unselfish,  we  only  insure  the  success  of  our 
mission  in  the  world. 

XI. 

Some  of  the  men,  who  have  become  all  of  a  sudden  patri 
otic  for  business  reasons,  were  and  perhaps  still  are  members 
of  the  German-American  Alliance,  of  the  Patriotic  League  of 
America,  another  German  organization  formed  to  oppose 
Theodore  Roosevelt  and  to  prevent  the  re-election  of  President 
Wilson,  and  a  purely  advertising  association,  pompously  styled 
"Foreign  Newspaper  Association."  Recent  disclosures  have 
more  than  proved  the  truth  of  assertions  I  have  been  making 
for  the  last  three  years ;  and  are  more  than  a  vindication  for 
the  attitude  I  took  in  the  last  national  campaign.  I  am  out  of 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  73 

politics  now,  and  if  I  shall  live,  I  may  never  enter  it  again. 

Will  the  lesson  teach  anything  to  politicians?  Will  they 
be  fooled  again  by  the  enemies  of  the  country?  Many  of  them 
are  in  perfect  good  faith ;  and  their  only  fault  is  that  in  their 
craving  for  victory  at  any  cost,  they  become  extremely  gullible, 
and  take  for  granted  the  claims  of  any  devotee  of  that  model  of 
candor,  sincerity,  and  unselfishness — Stieber.  The  revelations 
of  the  president  of  the  Toledo  Chamber  of  Commerce  are  a 
matter  of  old  knowledge  to  me,  as  old  knowledge  are  the  truths 
I  have  revealed  in  the  preceding  pages.  Not  all  truth  can  be 
proved  in  America,  where  a  legislation,  strange  and  often  con 
trary  to  reason,  calls  evidence  what  is  stupendously  deceitful, 
and  rejects  as  non-admissible  induction  facts,  which  leap  from 
the  sifting  of  the  most  stringent  logic,  as  virgin  mountain 
streams  spring  from  rocks.  And  for  this  reason,  unworthy  of 
the  most  specious  cavils  of  the  lowest  sophistries,  men  caught 
with  the  goods  are  sent  for  short  periods  to  the  penitentiary 
for  the  capital  crime  of  espionage,  and  people  only  guilty  of 
differing  in  minor  details  from  the  war  lords  of  the  country, 
and  even  of  not  believing  them  equal  to  the  task  of  leading  the 
country  to  a  successful  termination  of  the  conflict,  are  brand 
ed  as  enemies. 

The  fact  remains  that  all  foreign  nationalistic  organiza 
tions — no  matter  what  the  nationality,  the  language,  the  pre 
text,  and  the  specious  claims — are  antagonistic  to  the  best  in 
terests  of  the  United  States,  and  even  a  menace  to  its  future. 
Not  only  the  hyphen  should  be  suppressed,  but  everything 
which  makes  it  possible.  Patriotism  is  a  farce  and  a  hypoc 
risy,  if  it  is  not  deeply  rooted  in  the  heart.  People  who  believe 
that  material  welfare  alone  makes  the  country,  are  worse  than 
foreign  spies:  that  Latin  motto:  Ubi  bene,  ibi  patria — where 
it  is  well  with  me,  there  is  my  country — gives  me  the  chills.  It 
is  the  argument  of  venality,  chicanery,  and  moral  perversion. 
It  makes  people  display  the  flag,  sing  the  songs  of  the  father 
land,  and  sell  her  to  the  enemy.  It  induces  merchants  to  deco 
rate  their  stores,  and  hang  on  their  doors  signs  and  mottoes  of 
the  foremost  patriotic  effusion,  and  rob  the  soldiers  who  are 
on  their  way  to  sacrifice  their  blooming  youth  on  the  altar  of 
the  country.  Immense  is  my  faith  in  the  cause  of  freedom.  But 
freedom  is  a  power  for  good  and  not  for  evil.  Hospitality 
does  not  mean  the  permission  to  the  guest  to  dishonor,  rob, 
and  poison  us.  Brigandage  is  a  crime,  and  to  allow  foreigners 
to  come  here  to  practice  brigandage  in  our  cities  means  on  the 
part  of  our  legislative  and  judicial  authorities  to  be  abettors, 
"particeps  criminis." 

The  state  has  a  right  to  protect  itself.  No  foreign  paper 
should  be  permitted  to  circulate,  through  the  mails  or  in  any 
other  way,  unless  a  special  permit  has  been  granted  by  the 
proper  authorities  for  highly  commendable  and  patriotic  rea 
sons.  Ten  anarchistic  newspapers  will  not  do  as  much  harm 


74  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

as  a  publication  with  Americanism  on  the  lips  and  treason  in 
the  heart.  Honest  criticism  is  always  a  blessing.  Flattery  is 
never  sincere.  Smoothness  and  treachery  walk  always  hand  in 
hand :  a  psychologist  who  knew  his  business  rightly  remarked 
that  a  woman  is  never  so  affectionate  and  full  of  attentions  to 
her  husband  as  when  she  is  planning  to  deceive  him. 

No  charter  should  be  granted  to  foreign  organizations, 
and  all  given  already  should  be  repealed.  Constitutions  and 
by-laws  should  be  in  English,  and  all  business  should  be  trans 
acted  in  the  language  of  the  country.  Protests  from  politicians 
and  naturalized  citizens  against  any  action  of  the  kind  should 
be  considered  as  high  treason,  and  as  such  punished.  Legal 
advice  to  the  poor  should  be  given  by  lawyers  of  the  highest 
merit  and  integrity  employed  by  the  government ;  and  private 
labor  agents  should  be  forbidden  by  state  and  federal  laws. 
The  government  should  maintain  everywhere  labor  agencies 
and  employment  bureaus  free,  scrupulous,  fair  to  the  wage 
earner,  and  absolutely  divorced  from  politics.  No  interfer 
ence  of  foreign  representatives,  foreign  agitators,  or 
ministers  of  religion  should  be  tolerated.  Interest  of 
foreign  representatives  in  laborers'  misfortunes  is  very 
often  as  selfish  as  it  is  dishonest.  Consular  agents  of 
foreign  countries  have  made  a  business  to  grow  rich 
on  the  misfortunes  of  their  countrymen,  and  the  biggest  share 
of  what  should  have  gone  to  the  families  of  those  who  lost  their 
lives  in  labor  tragedies,  went  to  unscrupulous  lawyers,  to  dis 
honest  and  ignorant  interpreters  and  meddlers,  and  to  the 
sharks  who  were  appointed  by  their  government  to  carry  on 
such  a  deceitful,  rapacious,  and  bloodstained  task.  The  gov 
ernment  alone,  through  its  competent  special  representatives, 
free  of  prejudices  and  full  of  human  sympathy,  should  look 
after  the  interests  of  the  victims  of  accidents.  It  is  true  that 
they  may  be  sometimes  influenced  by  politics,  or  turned  from 
the  right  path  by  graft.  But  how  many  times  foreign  repre 
sentatives  have  sold  the  rights  of  the  unfortunates  they  were 
supposed  to  protect  to  unscrupulous  contractors  and  inhuman 
corporations?  An  inquest  conducted  by  the  government 
without  fear  and  favor,  would  give  surprising  results. 

All  private  and  parochial  schools,  where  other  lauguages 
than  English  are  the  channel  of  conveying  instruction,  must  be 
suppressed.  They  are  at  freedom  to  teach  their  own  language, 
as  schools  and  colleges  are  free  to  teach  any  language  and  any 
branch  of  human  knowledge ;  but  only  as  a  part  of  the  curri 
culum,  and  not  as  its  scope. 

Preaching  in  foreign  languages  should  not  be  tolerated. 
Only  by  special  permission  it  could  be  allowed  in  cases  urgent, 
advisable,  and  considered  opportune  and  favorable  to  our  ideal 
by  the  government,  state  and  national.  We  must  invite  co 
operation,  but  should  absolutely  prevent  conspiracy.  The  Lib- 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  75 

erty  League  buttons  of  the  Teuton  agents  cannot  deceive  the 
lover  of  America  and  Americanism.  We  despise  both  Catilina 
and  Julius  Caesar.  The  reason  why  this  country  is  drifting 
fast  toward  the  prohibition  vagary  is  not  because  the  people 
have  all  of  a  sudden  become  opposed  to  beer,  wine  or  whiskey, 
but  because  the  interference  of  liquor  dealers  in  politics  has 
become  disgusting  and  unbearable.  The  chief  debauchers  of 
the  foreign  element,  the  most  dangerous  allies  of  Stieber,  are 
people  engaged  in  the  manufacturing  and  dispensing  of  intoxi 
cants,  who  have  delighted  us  with  strange  hyphenated  alliances, 
liberty  leagues,  and  ignorant,  unscrupulous,  and  cunning  in 
dividuals  sent  to  city,  state,  and  national  offices  to  make  and 
unmake  laws  for  their  own  benefit. 

Somebody  will  observe  that  in  this  appeal,  I  am  denying 
the  very  principles  of  liberty,  which  have  been  the  ideal  of  my 
life,  and  which  have  made  me  misunderstood,  persecuted, 
and  unhappy,  all  over  the  world.  If  liberty  is  anarchy,  they 
are  right;  but  if  liberty  is  order,  justice,  and  brotherhood,  they 
are  deadly  wrong.  I  am  against  coercion  in  any  form.  But 
the  coercion  of  the  mob  is  often  much  more  violent  than  that  of 
the  minorities,  guided  by  reason  and  constrained  by  system; 
and  I  perform  a  duty  in  advising  my  countrymen  to  keep  their 
eyes  open  and  to  prevent  surprises,  which  might  be  a  serious 
menace  to  the  future  of  America  and  civilization.  One  ounce  of 
prevention,  say  the  common  people,  is  worth  a  pound  of  cure. 
People,  who,  in  their  quest  for  freedom,  go  into  extremes  are 
always  wrong.  Truth  and  justice  are  never  found  in  extremes. 
In  Medio  Virtus.  You  will  not  in  the  name  of  freedom  let  peo 
ple  commit  arson,  rape,  murder,  or  even  suicide;  neither  will 
you  allow  the  patient  of  a  contagious  disease  to  go  free  and 
scatter  infection  all  around.  Foreign  settlements,  which  I  have 
truly  representated,  are  a  hot-bed  of  contamination.  We  have 
pestilence  enough  among  the  natives,  which  requires  the  un 
usual  efforts  of  experts  in  preventive  social  medicine,  to  wish 
any  more.  Unless  we  are  disposed  to  attend  to  a  prodigious 
and  colossal  work  of  social  hygiene,  we  will  be  compelled,  later 
on,  to  depend  only  on  the  aid  of  extreme  surgery,  which  kills 
many  more  than  it  cures.  Justice  and  revenge  are  mortal  en 
emies;  and  yet  we  see  continually  justice  taking  her  delight  in 
revenge.  The  criminal  is  often  the  victim  of  bodily  or  social 
disease,  which  should  make  of  him  the  subject  of  pity  rather 
than  of  harsh  punishment.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  legislator  to 
be  the  real  doctor  of  social  disease.  And  it  is  exactly  a  social 
disease  which  I  have  examined  in  these  pages ! 

The  extreme  materialism,  to  which  our  glorious  country 
has  been  sacrificing  for  many  years,  deviating  from  the  right 
path  indicated  by  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence,  George  Washington,  Thomas  Jefferson,  Abraham  Lincoln, 
the  thousands  who  sacrificed  their  lives  in  the  Civil  War  so 


76  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

that  the  country  could  live,  had  made  of  the  United  States  a 
kind  of  shrine  to  the  god  of  gold.  But  the  war  has  awakened 
the  dormant  virtues,  and  a  rejuvenated  America,  strong,  good, 
trusting  God  and  her  mission  in  the  world,  will  wave  to  man 
kind  the  flag  of  real  freedom,  of  true  democracy,  which  means 
the  crumbling  of  sectarianism,  divisions,  and  oppression,  and 
the  establishment  of  the  radiant  kingdom  of  the  fatherhood  of 
God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man. 

XII. 

When  the  present  war  broke  out  superficial  observers 
thought  little  of  it.  They  had  an  idea  that  in  a  few  months 
everything  would  be  over.  Whether  Germany  or  France  was 
going  to  be  victorious,  it  was  of  little  concern  to  the  most. 
Teutonic  propaganda  had  so  poisoned  the  minds  of  most  of 
the  Americans  that  they  publicly,  insistently,  and  forcefully 
expressed  the  hope  to  see  Germany  and  Austria  ruling  Europe. 
Even  in  public  schools  some  American  teachers  were  not 
ashamed  to  champion  the  cause  of  Teutonism.  Newspapers, 
magazines,  colleges,  had  been  influenced  to  a  very  large  ex 
tent  by  German  propaganda.  The  interchange  of  professors 
had  helped  Germany  considerably.  Many  universities  had 
been  so  deeply  transformed  and  influenced  that  they  were  un 
able  to  think  except  in  German;  and  I  refer  to  the  leading 
ones.  Publishing  houses,  in  giving  out  collections  of  the  best 
thought  and  literature  in  the  world,  had  favored  principally 
Germany  and  almost  completely  set  aside  Latin  thought  and 
literature,  from  which  the  best  the  Teutons  possess  has  been 
ransacked.  Bacon  is  worth  all  the  German  philosophy,  and 
there  is  nothing  in  German  literature,  ancient  or  modern,  de 
spite  the  wild  claims  of  the  clumsy  Grimm,  which  can  even 
distantly  compare  with  Dante  and  Shakespeare.  You  see  that 
I  have  refrained  from  mentioning  Latin  models,  in  order  to 
show  to  Alfred  Harmsworth  that  his  own  country,  which  he 
and  his  countrymen  did  not  fully  appreciate  till  the  supreme 
trial  and  test  came,  in  spite  of  the  accusations  of  utilitarian 
ism  by  the  Teutons,  had  been  far  ahead  of  Germany  in  the  cen 
turies. 

I  was  reading,  a  few  days  ago,  certain  books  of  a  Chicago 
professor  of  criticism,  a  strange  criticism,  without  broadness, 
without  insight,  without  deepness,  without  knowledge  of  the 
people  he  was  judging  and  of  the  times  in  which  they  lived. 
He  forgot  to  add  to  the  titles  of  his  books,  "Made  in  Germany." 
In  judging  Rome,  he  followed  the  jealous  comments  origin 
ated  in  Germany,  distrustful  of  everything  and  everybody  not 
German.  Caesar  was  one  of  the  few  men  of  antiquity  who  im 
pressed  and  conquered  the  German  mind,  because  Caesar  is 
the  hero  after  German  conception.  The  professor  from,  Chi 
cago,  of  course,  in  order  to  show  that  he  had  some  originality, 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  77 

said  the  most  amusing  things  against  Caesar,  hypocritically 
commenting  that,  after  all,  there  was  some  excuse  for  Caesar, 
because  he  lived  in  a  pagan  world,  and  Christianity  had  not 
been  born  yet.  Right,  professor,  right.  Germans  and  their 
allies  are  so  civilized  now  because  they  are  following  the 
teachings  of  Jesus!  Haeckel,  the  enemy  of  all  religions  and 
the  author  of  scientific  material  plundered  from  Darwin,  could 
not  reason  any  better!  How  many  enemies  have  I  made  only 
because  I  warned  my  American  friends,  as  I  had  warned  my 
Italian  and  French  brothers,  about  the  dangerous  path  they 
were  following!  It  is  true  that  at  the  time  I  came  to 
America,  being  much  younger,  I  was  more  radical ;  and  in  my 
missionary  work  I  put  more  fire  than  charity;  as  it  is  true 
that,  having  been  all  my  life  an  outspoken  advocate  of  fair 
play  and  sincerity,  I  hurt  many,  because  I  called  and  do  call 
things  by  their  own  names,  and  if  words  sometimes  do  not  ex 
press  entirely  my  ideas,  it  is  only  because  my  limited  knowl 
edge  of  English  prevents  me  from  using  the  very  expressions 
which  would  faithfully  photograph  my  thought  and  its  pecu 
liar  shadings.  When  the  war  broke  out — I  was  saying — the 
superficial  observers  thought  very  little  of  it.  But  everybody 
with  a  sufficient  knowledge  of  history,  of  modern  means  of  de 
struction,  of  mad  militaristic  preparations,  of  growing 
social  unrest,  of  economic  conditions,  of  the  uncontrollable 
greed  of  that  trinity  of  evil — Germany,  England,  and  Japan — 
of  a  Teutonic  net  of  intrigue  and  espionage,  which  was  becom 
ing  for  mankind  more  unbearable  than  the  mythological  gar 
ment  of  Nessus,  of  problems  of  .nationality,  which,  in  spite  of 
the  powerful  narcotics  of  1848  and  following  years,  did  not  ebb 
away  in  slumber  and  had  been  menacingly  awaking,  every 
one  of  them  knew  it  had  to  come  fatally  as  the  day  of  judg 
ment.  People,  who  were  working  under  the  delusion  that  the 
frightful  discoveries  of  appalling  means  of  destruction  would 
make  future  wars  impossible,  forgot  the  warning  of  Bacon, 
justly  called  to  mind  by  Jean  Bloch:  "In  the  vanity  of  the 
world  a  greater  field  of  action  is  opened  for  folly  than  for  rea 
son,  and  frivolity  always  enjoys  more  influence  than  judg- 
ment." 

John  Bloch,  a  poor  Polish  Jew,  became  enormously  rich 
building  Russian  railroads;  and  in  the  last  years  of  his 
life  spent  his  time  and  a  great  amount  of  money,  studying 
conditions  and  possibilities  of  modern  warfare.  From  1890  to 
1898  he  gathered  in  six  volumes  the  fruit  of  his  observations, 
meditations,  conclusions,  which  were  published  by  Ginn  and 
Company  of  Boston,  under  the  title  "The  Future  War."  Mr. 
Bloch  died  in  1902,  and  has  not  lived  to  see  the  fallacy  of  his 
views  that,  on  account  of  the  new,  powerful  means  of  destruc 
tion,  future  wars,  which  would  mean  the  destruction  of  all 
armies — of  invasion  and  defense — would  be  a  physical  impos 
sibility.  But  he  was  perhaps  right  when  he  claimed  that  a 


78  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

European  conflagration  would  end  in  a  draw.  In  the  times  of 
Mr.  Bloch  nobody  had  yet  an  idea  that  wars  could  be  fought 
from  the  sky  and  from  the  bottom  of  the  sea.  The  modern 
submarine  and  the  flying  machine  were  a  matter  of  conjecture 
and  experiment.  The  first  man  who  pointed  put  to  the  unsus 
pecting  Britishers  the  dangers  of  a  submarine  warfare  was 
not  Mr.  Wells,  as  many  people  who  insist  on  making  a  prophet 
of  the  great  English  novelist  are  stating,  but  Dr.  A.  Conan 
Doyle,  whose  articles,  which  I  read  in  Collier's  Weekly  a  little 
while  before  the  war  was  declared,  created  a  deep  impression 
on  me.  That  the  war  will  end  in  a  draw  is  the  opinion  of  many 
clear-minded  and  foresighted  students  of  human  occurrences. 

In  my  humble  capacity,  delivering  in  October,  1890,  a  po- 
litical  speech  to  a  constituency  assembled  in  the  Tempio  di 
Serapide  at  Pozzuoli,  Naples,  I  foresaw  the  terrible  conflagra 
tion.  At  the  hospitable  house  of  a  Pozzuoli  antiquarian  and 
archeologist — Abbate  Criscio,  a  Catholic  priest — I  was  arguing 
about  the  future  of  wars  and  mankind  with  the  German  his 
torian,  Theodore  Mommsen.  Both  Professor  Mommsen  and 
Reverend  Criscio  were  amused  at  my  observations  that  a 
great,  appalling  war  would  fatally  come,  which  would  inexor 
ably  make  a  far  country — the  United  States  of  America — the 
guardian  of  democracy  and  civilization.  Some  time  later, 
Professor  Mommsen,  speaking  of  me  with  Reverend  Criscio, 
called  me  in  a  jocular  way  "the  American  prophet;"  and  the 
man  who  gave  me  the  information  was  Signor  Pollio,  a  Poz 
zuoli  gentleman  of  high  standing,  whose  sons  had  been  my 
college  chums,  and  who  was  the  owner  of  a  magnificent  bed  of 
Fusaro  oysters — the  most  delicious  in  the  world — and  of  lands 
very  rich  in  Roman  antiquities.  When  the  observation  was 
made,  I  was  far  away,  in  Russia.  In  spite  of  the  suspicion 
that  an  immense  European  conflagration,  which  has  become 
the  world's  war,  would  end  in  a  draw,  I  kept  inciting  the  Ital 
ians  against  the  Austrians  all  my  life.  National  aspirations, 
family  blood  spilt  for  the  cause,  Austrian  and  German  op 
pression  of  centuries,  Garibaldian  affiliations,  knowledge  of 
history,  made  of  me  one  of  the  most  ardent  missionaries  of 
Irredentism.  And  my  sincere  Americanism  strengthens  my 
conviction  that  the  worst  blunder  of  President  Wilson  would 
be  even  a  distant  encouragement  to  leave  Austria  as  she  is. 
No  statu$  quo  in  a  country  which  is  not  united  by  ties  of  na 
tionality,  mutual  respect,  love,  common  aspirations,  spiritual 
unity.  Austria  is  not  a  nation :  she  is  a  gilded  shop  of  nation 
alities,  languages,  tendencies,  civilizations,  opposite,  conflict 
ing,  unmixable,  which  may  perhaps  become  good  neighbors, 
but  can  never  dwell  under  the  same  roof.  I  dream  a  huge  vic 
tory.  I  wish  it.  I  want  it.  But,  so  far  as  the  United  States 
is  concerned,  the  ending  of  the  war  in  a  draw  will  be  a  ruin 
only  in  appearance.  All  European  nations  will  find  them 
selves  in  such  a  state  of  poverty,  abjection,  collapse,  that 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  79 

whether  willing  or  not  they  have  to  come  to  their  senses,  and 
grant  gladly  what  they  were  refusing  in  the  madness  of  devas 
tation  and  carnage.  Germany  has  to  restore  Belgium,  to  give 
back  Alsace-Lorraine  to  heroic  France,  to  relinquish  Poland, 
to  say  good-bye  to  imperial  dreams.  Serbia  will  be  restored. 
Italy  will  have  Trento,  Trieste,  Pola,  Fiume,  and  rule  supreme 
in  the  Adriatic.  Bulgaria  will  cease  to  be  a  nation  of  vultures. 
Austria  and  Turkey  shall  disappear  from  the  geographic  map. 
The  Balkans  shall  be  readjusted  in  conformity  with  justice,  and 
not  to  suit  selfish  Britain  or  infamous  Germany. 

We  all  hope  and  wish  that  the  termination  of  the  war  will 
be  determined  by  a  decisive  victory  of  the  allies ;  and  no  effort 
should  be  spared  to  reach  such  a  glorious  end.  Our  magnifi 
cent  national  administration  will  add  new  achievements  to  the 
wonders  already  accomplished.  But  a  decisive  victory  over 
the  Central  Empires  can  be  anticipated  and  expected  only  if 
the  allies  will  once  and  forever  understand  the  necessity  of 
unity  of  purpose  and  of  command.  All  fronts  should  obey  the 
orders  of  one  master  mind.  Italy  was  the  key  to  a  final,  decis 
ive,  crushing,  obstreperous  victory.  Napoleon  knew  his  busi 
ness  more  than  all  of  his  modern  imitators  combined.  And  he 
admonished  that  Berlin  should  be  reached  through  Vienna.  Ca- 
dorna  was  accomplishing  wonders.  The  unexpected  happened 
not  only  through  treason,  and  Bolsheviki,  pacifist,  and  religious 
propaganda,  but  principally  through  want  of  war  material, 
and  through  lack  of  understanding  and  cooperation  of  the 
allies.  I  have  been  tempted  to  use  the  word  "jealousy."  With 
the  unity  of  command  the  disaster  would  have  been  impossible. 
Grand  Duke  Nicholas  of  Russia  was  the  best  allied  general, 
with  Foch  of  France  a  close  second.  Now  that  through  the 
Russian  revolt  and  mess  Nicholas  has  been  eliminated  forever, 
would  the  allies  come  to  their  senses,  the  supreme  command 
should  be  given  to  General  Ferdinand  Foch,  whom  Marshal 
Joffre  rightly  called  the  greatest  strategist  in  Europe. 

But  be  as  it  may,  the  United  States  of  America  will  be 
anyhow  the  moral  and  material  winner  of  the  conflict.  Should 
the  war  end  in  a  draw,  America  would  become  the  dominant 
factor,  politic  and  economic,  in  the  world,  as  sure  as  day  will 
follow  night.  We  are  far  from  the  theatre  of  the  frightful 
conflict,  where  thousands  of  volcanoes  seem  to  spread  ruin  and 
death  all  around.  Our  territory  will  be  spared.  Our  indus 
trial  and  agricultural  activities  will  continue,  and  need  will 
improve  them  wonderfully.  The  merchant  marine,  which  is 
one  of  the  most  impellent  needs  of  this  country,  will  have  be 
come  a  reality,  a  national  pride,  a  source  of  blessing  to  Amer 
ica.  Our  increased  and  improved  productiveness  will  supply 
our  wants  and  help  other  countries.  I  say  help  other  coun 
tries,  and  not  conquer  other  markets,  because  our  mission 
will  not  be  that  of  commercial  expansion,  but  of  bringing  to 
every  country  in  the  world  the  blessings  of  democracy. 


80  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

The  greatest  ascendancy  of  the  United  States  of  America 
in  the  affairs  of  the  world  should  not  be  mercenary.  We  have 
everything  we  need.  We  must  not  be  anxious  for  wealth ;  first, 
because  we  have  everything  we  want;  second,  because  happi 
ness  and  glory  do  not  come  from  mountains  of  gold,  but  from 
broadness  of  mind  and  stoutness  of  heart.  Monarchies  and 
empires  are  despicable.  But  a  republic  of  merchants,  who 
think  only  of  wealth  and  power,  will  be  as  unjust,  tyrannical, 
and  undemocratic  as  the  Republic  of  San  Marco  (Venice), 
which  was  the  worst  negation  of  justice  and  freedom  in  the 
history  of  the  Italians. 

But  we  must  demand  that  the  peace  of  the  world  be  for 
ever  assured,  recognizing  the  principle  of  nationality,  which 
is  one  of  the  first  fundamentals  of  civilization,  eliminating 
obsolete  forms  of  government,  which,  depending  on  large 
armies  and  navies,  will  be  the  impending  sword  of  Damocles 
on  peaceful  countries,  securing  the  blessings  of  democracy  to 
all  nations.  Even  a  democratic  republic  would  be  a  blessing 
to  England — the  England  of  the  people  and  not  of  the  lords — 
no  matter  what  the  laudatores  temporis  acti  will  say.  If  the 
monarchies  of  England,  Italy,  Belgium,  and  Spain  are  prac 
tically  free  democracies,  and  if  the  republic  of  Venice  was  a 
kind  of  aristocratic  oligarchy,  where  the  will  of  the  people  was 
absolutely  unknown,  the  fact  remains  that  kings  if  decorative 
are  a  useless  and  very  expensive  luxury,  and  if  invested  with 
power  they  are  a  constant  menace.  The  House  of  Lords  in 
England  and  the  Senate  in  Italy  are  a  prerogative  and  a  de 
fense  of  the  crown,  an  institution,  in  other  words,  radically  op 
posed  to  every  principle  of  democracy.  When  the  king  is  com- 
mander-in-chief  of  the  army  and  navy,  has  the  power  to  de 
clare  war  and  to  conclude  treaties,  can  dissolve  parliament,  if 
the  laws  enacted  displease  him,  when  his  person  is  sacred  and 
inviolable,  who  is  the  fool  who  has  the  nerve  to  make  a  com 
parison  between  republics  and  monarchies,  and  declare  em 
phatically  that  the  only  difference  is  in  the  name?  We  call 
real  republics  only  those  democracies  which  are  masters  of 
their  destinies,  and  make  and  unmake  their  own  governments, 
from  president  down.  It  is  true  that  we,  citizens  of  the  United 
States,  have  too  much  respect  for  the  will  and  freedom  of 
other  peoples,  and  we  have  no  desire  to  dictate  to  them  what 
kind  of  government  they  should  have.  But  as  missionaries 
of  real  democracy,  we  have  a  right  to  express  our  wishes  and 
our  views. 

Washington  has  to  become  the  New  Rome,  not  the  New 
Rome  dreamt  by  the  two  German  gentlemen  I  have  awakened 
from  the  long  silence  of  the  grave,  but  the  real  holy  city,  gov 
erned  by  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man. 

With  the  teachings  of  Thomas  Jefferson  and  with  Pro 
gress  and  Poverty  of  Henry  George,  we  can  correct  our  politi 
cal  and  economical  mistakes.  In  order  to  teach  freedom  to 


Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi  81 

other  people,  we  should  free  ourselves.     Duties  of  Men,  by 
Giuseppe  Mazzini,  should  be  the  civil  catechism  of  the  genera 
tions.    Rome  of  old,  situated  in  the  center  of  the  world  of  yore, 
was  its  natural  head.     Roma,  Caput  Mundi.     She  converted 
the  world  into  a  huge  suburb  of  the  metropolis,  centralizing, 
controlling,  keeping  in  absolute  subjection  to  the  national  sys 
tem.    She  had  no  heart,  no  human  sympathy,  no  mercy  to  the 
servants,  the  enemies,  the  rebels;  and  governed  only  with 
head  and  arm,  the  law  and  the  legions.     Noblemen  and  ple- 
bians,  masters  and  slaves,  Romans  and  Barbarians.    Art,  lit 
erature,  and  science,  were  in  their  beginning,  and  remained 
for  a  very  long  time  the  occupations  of  the  low,  the  oppressed, 
the  slave ;  and  even  later  on,  when  Rome  became  the  center  of 
culture  and  refinement,  her  really  great,  with  very  few  excep 
tions,  were  not  properly  Romans,  but  people  from,  the  pro 
vinces:  Horace  from  Venosa,  Virgil  from  Mantua,  Ovid  from 
Sulmo,  Sallust  from  Amiternum,  Cicero  from  Arpinum,  Livy 
from  Patavium,  Tacitus.     The  founders  of  Latin  Literature 
had  been  slaves  and  "liberti" — Andronicus,  Ennius,  Plautus, 
Terence,  Naevius.    In  years  gone  by,  Rome  had  been  a  great 
and  austere  nation,  powerful,  feared,  wonderfully  expanding; 
but  she  despised  as  unworthy  of  a  virile  race  what  she  consid 
ered  the  corrupting  influence  of  arts  and  letters.     But  after 
she  conquered  Greece,  the  slaves  made  captive  their  masters 
through  their  letters  and  vices.     Horace  rightly  observed  in 
his  Ars  Poetica:    "Captive  Greece  took  captive  her  rude  con 
queror."     Decadence  in  literature  always  is  a  twin  sister  of 
effeminacy.      Great  natural  vigor  and  strength  of  character 
modified  by  the  influences  just  named  produced  monstrosities 
like  Catilina  and  Julius  Caesar,  both  Romans  from  Rome,  both 
patricians,  both  in  different  ways  a  strange  mixture  of  altru 
ism  and  selfishness,  generosity  and  cruelty.    Roman  vigor  had 
been  emasculated  by  Greek  perversion.    When  genius  and  folly 
appear  in  the  same  individual,  be  positive  that  something  is 
wrong  somewhere;  generally  the  one  who  makes  victims  has 
been  a  victim  before.    If  you  allow  your  daughters  and  sons 
to  go  and  drink  and  dance  with  everybody  in  cabarets,  you 
have  no  right  to  complain  of  the  inevitable  harvesting ! 

The  Roman — the  typical  Roman  genius — in  the  intellec 
tual  history  of  the  capital  of  the  world  of  yore  is  Lucretius. 
De  Rerum  Natura  is  the  masterpiece  of  an  age. 

If  not  corrupted  by  Greek  decadence,  Rome  would  have 
had  masterpieces  galore,  with  the  national  trade-mark;  and 
we  would  not  be  compelled  to  shudder  only  at  the  idea  that  our 
children  might  read  the  shocking  obscenities  of  Ovid,  garbed 
in  verses  of  rapturing  beauty.  Admirable  is  certainly  Virgil ; 
but  we  cannot  separate  him  from  Homer;  while  Dante,  who 
calls  Virgil  "his  master  and  his  author,"  is  always  Dante,  per 
haps  the  greatest  poet  and  artist  of  all  ages,  as  Thomas  Carlyle 
practically  declares  in  his  lectures  on  Hero  Worship.  For  Ugo 


82  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

Foscolo  the  three  masters  of  all  divine  geniuses  were  Homer, 
Dante,  and  Shakespeare.    Amen. 

The  New  Rome,  Washington,  situated  in  the  center  of  the 
modern  world,  must  be  its  natural  heart.  Washington,  Cor 
Mundi. 

The  idea  of  conquest  is  extraneous  to  our  conception  of 
greatness,  and  socialism,  as  preached  by  the  followers  of 
Marx,  is  not  a  product  of  the  American  soil.  We  advocate 
human  brotherhood,  without  communism ;  true  altruism,  with 
out  suppressing  the  greatest  incentive  of  progress  and  happi 
ness — well-directed  individualism.  We  want  everybody  at 
his  place,  in  order  to  work  effectively  and  efficiently  for  the 
common  good,  for  the  advance  of  the  race  and  of  humanity. 
A  man,  no  matter  how  clever  and  great,  cannot  accomplish 
everything.  Mazzini  was  a  great  thinker,  the  greatest  of  all 
philosophers  of  freedom,  the  educator  and  apostle  of  an  age  of 
giants.  But  he  was  absolutely  unfit  to  have  a  position  which  re 
quired  executive  ability.  He  ruined  the  Roman  Republic,  he 
made  a  mess  of  many  of  the  revolts  which  preceded  the  unifi 
cation  of  Italy.  And  the  resentment  of  Garibaldi  was  more  than 
justified.  Who  can  read  the  famous  letter  of  Garibaldi,  without 
going  with  the  mind  to  the  miserable  conditions  created  in 
Russia  by  theorists  lacking  executive  ability?  Disgusted  with 
the  uncertainties  of  Mazzini  and  the  other  triumvirs,  on  June 
2nd,  1849,  the  great  liberator  wrote  to  the  great  master  of  lib 
erty: 

"Mazzini :  Here  I  cannot  avail  anything  for  the 
good  of  the  Republic,  save  in  two  ways:  as  a  dicta 
tor  with  unlimited  plenary  powers,  or  as  a  simple 
soldier.  Choose! — Giuseppe  Garibaldi." 

I  have  related  the  incident,  in  order  to  show  that  to  criti 
cise  inefficient  officials  in  Washington  does  not  mean  to  be 
poor  patriots.  Nobody  loves  Mazzini  more  than  I  do ;  but  I  do 
not  believe  I  am  guilty  of  any  lack  of  respect  to  his  memory,  if 
I  state  that  he  had  no  executive  ability.  I  have,  in  order  to 
avoid  misunderstandings,  taken  examples  from  Italy,  picking 
up  exactly  the  men  whose  memories  I  worship  most. 

It  is  absolutely  necessary  to  avoid  and  eliminate  all 
strange  dualisms  of  good  and  evil.  If  we  have  to  offer  the 
world,  with  much  good,  some  evil,  it  is  better  to  give  up  the 
task.  America  cannot  be  but  good.  Like  many  of  the  ancient 
— all  religions  show  the  same  dualism — the  old  Russians  had 
two  gods — Belibodg,  the  genius  of  good;  and  Tschernobog, 
the  genius  of  evil :  they  were  worshiping  the  former  for  grat 
itude,  and  the  later  for  fear.  If  our  country  has  to  be  a  god 
dess  for  all  nations  on  earth,  she  must  be  worshiped  for  grati 
tude,  and  not  for  fear.  We  can  have  in  this  country  but  one 
great  mission — that  of  spreading  all  over  the  world  private, 
social,  and  political  virtue. 


Gigliotti—Cor  Mundi  83 

More  fortunate  than  any  other  people,  ancient  or  mod 
ern,  also  in  this  respect  we  had,  combined  in  the  same  man, 
the  theoretical  and  executive  ability.  Abraham  Lincoln,  who 
was  our  immortal  teacher  of  freedom,  was  also  the  greatest 
President  this  country  ever  had;  or,  if  you  please,  the  most 
wonderful  chief  executive  in  the  history  of  the  world.  The 
ancients  would  have  made  a  god  of  him.  Great  was  George 
Washington,  but  his  greatness  is  essentially  American. 

That  erratic  rag  peddler  of  swill  barrel  erudition  and 
gossip  unworthy  even  of  the  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  Pro 
fessor  Beard,  in  order  to  appear  a  man  of  great  ability,  tried 
to  belittle  Washington  and  the  other  immortal  fathers  of  the 
country,  picking  up  the  piquant  traits  of  human  weakness. 
The  greater  the  man,  the  more  human  he  is.  The  weakness 
of  our  clay,  contrasting  stupendously  with  "the  marvels  of 
the  spirit,  gives  a  more  bold  and  impressive  projection  to 
genius.  Bacon  enunciated  the  greatest  of  all  philosophical 
truths,  when  he  sentenced:  Homo  sum;  humani  nihil  a  me 
alienum  puto — I  am  a  man,  nothing  of  what  is  human  do  I 
count  foreign  to  myself.  Even  Jesus  was  tempted  by  Satan. 
Hypocrisy  and  greatness  cannot  blend.  A  great  man  without 
faults,  big  or  small,  is  an  absurdity,  a  conventional  lie,  a  mon 
strosity.  Jesus  spoke  to  mankind  in  the  incident  of  the  adul 
teress.  Abraham  Lincoln  spoke  to  mankind  when  he  answered 
his  "holier  than  thou"  adviser :  "I  am  sorry  I  don't  know  what 
brand  of  whiskey  General  Grant  drinks,  or  I  would  send  him 
a  barrel."  If  George  Washington  belongs  to  America,  Abra 
ham  Lincoln  belongs  to  mankind. 

After  Lincoln  we  had  great  Presidents.  Who  can  ever 
forget,  if  he  is  honest,  the  commanding  figure  of  Grover  Cleve 
land?  He  was  a  giant,  surrounded  by  pygmies,  who  wanted 
to  reduce  him  to  their  size,  or  by  political  opponents  blinded 
by  passion.  President  Roosevelt  astonished  the  world  with 
his  ability,  foresight,  culture,  directness,  and  character.  His 
faults,  big  as  they  may  seem,  give  wonderful  relief  to  the  im 
mensity  of  his  figure.  Even  as  a  private  citizen,  in  spite  and 
because  of  his  outbursts,  he  is  an  extraordinarily  inspiring 
influence  to  our  country  and  to  the  civilized  world.  And  now 
that  political  passion  is  not  blinding  us  any  more,  we  have  to 
admit  that  President  Taft  was  as  peaceful  and  lofty  as  head 
of  this  country  as  peaceful  and  lofty  he  is  as  a  private  citizen. 
President  Wilson  is  to-day  the  greatest  leader  in  the  Arma 
geddon  for  democracy  and  justice.  May  the  Lord  keep  him 
and  bless  him.  I  wrote  against  him,  when  I  judged  him  from 
his  history  of  the  American  people.  I  have  nothing  but  ad 
miration  for  him,  now  that  his  work  as  a  statesman  makes  of 
him  the  most  commanding  public  figure  in  the  world.  May 
the  Lord  convince  the  Americans,  whose  prejudice  against  a 
third  term  is  founded  on  sentiment  rather  than  reason,  of  the 
wiseness  and  of  the  necessity  of  making  Mr.  Wilson  President 


84  Gigliotti — Cor  Mundi 

for  the  third  time.  If  the  war  is  not  at  an  end  by  1920,  the 
country  needs  absolutely  his  services;  and  if  peace  has 
been  restored,  he  is  the  man  who  can,  on  account  of  the  ex 
perience  and  the  knowledge  of  the  last  trying  years,  success 
fully  face  the  arduous  task  of  readjustment  and  reconstruc 
tion.  Had  Lincoln  not  been  assassinated  by  Booth,  the  country 
should  have  forced  a  third  term  on  him.  He  could  have  done 
in  two  years  what  his  successors  were  unable  to  do  in  a  quar 
ter  of  a  century.  The  elevation  of  Johnson  to  the  presidency 
was  a  public  calamity.  This  is  the  verdict  of  history,  and  his 
tory  has  not  been  shaped  by  any  of  us,  author  or  readers.  I 
hasten  to  the  conclusion.  Foreign  settlements  must  be  wiped 
off  from  big  and  small  cities.  Unless  you  cut  the  abominable 
tree  of  disloyalty,  treachery  and  corruption,  and  dig  up  the 
roots,  and  burn  them,  scattering  the  ashes  to  the  winds,  the 
same  deleterious  influences,  which  came  from  Greece  and 
ruined  Rome,  will  disrupt  inexorably  this  land  of  promise. 
The  deleterious  work  had  started  already.  The  world's  war 
came  in  time  to  take  us  from  the  brink  of  the  abyss,  and  re 
store  to  us  the  virtues,  the  ideals,  and  the  faith  of  the  founders 
of  this  great  Republic. 

In  order  to  become  worthy  citizens  of  the  New  Rome, 
"we  must  (these  are  the  words  of  Abraham  Lincoln)  lay  aside 
any  prejudices  and  march,  shoulder  to  shoulder,  in  the  great 
army  of  Freedom.  We  must  make  of  this  a  land  of  liberty  in 
fact,  as  it  is  in  name." 

May  official  Washington  hear  and  accept  the  warning 
and  the  pleading  of  this  Vox  clamantis  in  deserto,  of  this  hum 
ble  citizen  who  loves  this  country  more  than  anything  on  earth 
— more  than  his  own  life. 

God  bless  our  country!  God  bless  our  soldiers,  making 
of  them,  more  than  unconquerable  fighters  and  heroes,  the 
noble  champions  of  justice,  democracy,  and  love. 

Providence  has  made  of  Washington  the  heart  of  the 
world. 

WASHINGTON,  COR  MUNDI. 

The  End. 


ERRATA 


On  page  15,  tenth  line  of  third  paragraph  should  read  "stiletto." 

On  page  68,  closing  line  of  second  paragraph  should  read  "Joan 
of  Arc." 


THE  FOLLOWING  WORKS  OF 

NICOLA    GIGLIOTTI 

WILL  BE  PUBLISHED  IN  ENGLISH: 

"History  of   Political  Thought " 

(Sforia  del  Pensiero  Politico) 
4  8-vo.  Volumes 

"Human  Tragedies" 

"  Letters  from  Heaven  and  from 
Hell" 


Gaylord  Bros. 

Makers 
Syracuse,  N.  Y. 

PAT.  JAN.  21,  1908 


YC  27 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


